


From the Ground Up

by Xparrot



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Drama, Drugs, Dystopia, M/M, Memory Alteration, Present Tense, Strexcorp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-01-14 16:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 157,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1273615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/Xparrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The colloquial name is bloodstone," says the man from StrexCorp's Acquisitions division. "Heard of them?" </p><p>Carlos shakes his head. "No, but I'm not a minerologist. Are you certain this wasn't intended for the geology department?"</p><p>~</p><p>Carlos is a loyal company employee, who has never been to any place called Night Vale and never met anyone named Cecil…which doesn’t explain the mysterious woman appearing in his lab, or these dreams he’s started having…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay...I'm breaking my usual rules and posting while the draft is still really in progress, so updates may be sporadic.
> 
> I'm starting now because it's a story that could be jossed with any new episode; and also, well - my main co-fan is rather tired of me writing Night Vale fic, and truth be told I didn't intend to do another multi-parter...then I had a bad day and indulged in this scenario I've been daydreaming about. But it's a story I wasn't planning on writing, so if no one's interested I'll just keep it in my head.
> 
> I am not a scientist, nor do I play one on the radio; all I have is a love of technobabble and Wikipedia. Please forgive any absurdities committed against any unspecified disciplines!

"Be careful with it," says the manager from Acquisitions, as he opens the lead-lined box. "It's one of only a pair we've managed to successfully extract."

Carlos peers into the box. It holds a single stone, approximately the dimensions of his fist. Its surface is uneven, the jagged, shining black of obsidian, but with an inclusion of another mineral running in branching veins, iron-rich to tell by its deep red hue.

"What is it?" he asks.

"The colloquial name is bloodstone," the man says. "Heard of them?"

Carlos shakes his head. "No, but I'm not a minerologist. Are you certain this wasn't intended for the geology department?"

"They have the other one," the acquisitions manager says. "This one is for you. We need a way to track them down."

"Track them? You mean, locate deposits?"

"Not exactly. But any method of detection you can come up with will help the company's efforts."

Carlos taps the box's lid thoughtfully. "Any method up to what cost?"

The man from acquisitions checks his tablet. Twice. Then says, with a hint of disbelief, "Unlimited."

Carlos's eyebrows lift. He's never been given an unlimited budget before. The expected profit margin for these bloodstones must be astronomical. "What's the deadline?"

The man checks his tablet again. "ASAP." The look he throws Carlos is either envy or relief.

Carlos has never been given an ASAP project before, either. "Then I better get started."

 

* * *

 

Initial work on the bloodstone is discouraging. It isn't magnetic, its refractive index is generic, and its radioactivity isn't high enough to distinguish it from the potassium in a bunch of bananas. Its density is equivalent to a number of other volcanic minerals, so seismic reflection wouldn't be useful.

Come lunchtime, when Carlos files into the company cafeteria, the nutrition specialist gives him a plastic sachet with his lasagna. The pill inside is tiny, circular, and emerald green.

The scientist sitting across from Carlos watches him swallow it, remarks, "Wow, what project were you put on, to get the good stuff?"

She's an older woman, her tightly bunned black hair streaked with markedly more gray than Carlos's own. Carlos has only been at the DB facility for a couple of months, not long enough to learn many of his colleagues' names; but he sometimes sees her during the morning Teamwork & Efficiency Recitation. The diamond pin on her lab coat identifies her as from the geology department—possibly assigned to work with the other bloodstone? Or maybe not, since she doesn't have a lunchtime dose. Carlos puts down his water, explains, "I'm on an ASAP."

"Already? Congratulations!" Her smile is admirably practiced.

"Thank you," Carlos mumbles, forking bites into his mouth as fast as he can chew. He can't afford to waste time here.

"So, is this your first rush job?" she asks.

Carlos nods. The stimulant might have hit his bloodstream already; his pulse is pounding. In the lab he can lose himself in the scientific exploration, but separated from the tests and equipment his mind wanders. 

He finds himself thinking back to the orientation seminar, when the HR representative had introduced them to Dr. Blanchard. Dr. Blanchard had formerly been one of the R&D directors, a highly paid, prestigious post; but he'd devoted too much time to personal projects, had let the company down.

Of course they were generous enough to keep him hired, so Carlos sees Dr. Blanchard every day. Usually he's cleaning the mirrors in the seventeenth floor men's room, painstakingly wiping the glass in slow, methodical circles. Occasionally his supervisor will relocate him to the elevators, to polish the metal doors in those same careful circles, until he's stopped.

Carlos starts when the geologist reaches across the table to pat his hand. "I'm sure you'll do fine," she tells him. "Just stay focused, and think of the bonus you'll get if you succeed. Eyes on the prize, right? Good luck!"

 

* * *

 

Carlos gets another green pill at dinner. Multiple doses in quick succession leave his mouth dry and his hands trembling minutely. He gets an extra bottle of water from the dispenser and steadies his wrists on the keyboard tray to type.

He keeps the radio on as usual. Even if it weren't a company requirement, he's always preferred a little background noise. Tonight he works through Kevin's sign-off, on until midnight, when the cognitively boosting soft jazz is undercut by a subliminal voice reminding that a well-rested worker is a productive worker. Carlos reluctantly submits his End-Of-Day report and departs.

On the shuttle to the company dorms, he stares out the window at the featureless desert. Freed from the immediate focus of the project, his mind careens from idea to idea like a whipping top spun off its string. He wonders how many other scientists in his division may have been given this project before him. There's no way to know; for legal reasons failed research is often expunged from corporate documentation, along with the researchers. Or is he the first? In which case he should start with the most basic tests, determine composition, molecular structure, isotopic signature. He'll need extra equipment, more precise tools...

His brain is still churning as he takes the elevator up to his single room. Fortunately his nightly prescription has been updated; there are two sky-blue oblong tablets in the sachet by his bed instead of only one. After swallowing them, he just has time to brush his teeth, change into his pajamas and file requisitions for an electron microscope and a photodiode array, before falling asleep with his tablet in hand.

At seven-thirty the dorm's good-morning buzzer sounds. He showers and stumbles down to the dorm cafeteria. There's another green pill at breakfast, instead of the usual sunshine-yellow, and by the time the shuttle brings him to the lab, he's more than ready to have a productive day.

 

* * *

 

The requested equipment is delivered promptly, but Carlos fails to make significant progress in the days that follow. The bloodstone persists in being an ordinary rock; he can't even determine what makes it so valuable, much less how to track it. The only accurate method of location he's proven is visual identification. 

He tries to keep his EOD reports pertinent, diligently describing every test and framing the results as positives. "Denser than H2O, so in any given body of water always guaranteed to be found at the bottom rather than the surface." "Confirmed opaque, so is easily differentiated from transparent glass."

So far it's been sufficiently convincing. Carlos's supervisors haven't come to the lab to evaluate his progress in person. And Kevin hasn't read off his name on the daily roster of the underperforming: _"Those of us who need a little extra encouragement—we all have days like that, folks, so if you see any of them today, remember to give them a thumbs' up or a pat on the back, or a quick jolt from a productivity inspiration rod, if you're a supervisor!"_

Still, when Carlos gets the email alerting him to a scheduled afternoon session at Psych, he almost panics. He considers pretending he missed the message in his inbox, but of course it was flagged the moment he opened it. So at three sharp he takes the elevator up to the fifty-sixth floor, one down from HR—the Ward, it's informally known as.

This is only his third visit, after orientation and his thirty-day review last month. Dr. Tithoes is as friendly as the other psychiatrists, meeting Carlos at his receptionist's desk and giving him a firm handshake before inviting him into his office. It's decorated exactly like the others, except he has an orchid on the window sill instead of a fichus or spider plant.

"A well-proportioned _Miltoniopsis_ hybrid," Carlos remarks of the flower, "though providing the proper humidity in this environment cannot be an efficient use of company resources—" and then he forces shut his mouth. He's no botanist. And every word spoken in this office will be recorded and analyzed. The wrong one could get him removed from the project, the department—even the company itself.

Dr. Tithoes offers him a professionally calming smile. "Relax, Carlos—can I call you Carlos? This is a routine appointment, standard for everyone assigned to ASAP projects. We want to stay in extra-special touch with our most valued employees." He picks up his tablet, scrolls through the forms. "Your profile looks normal. Hmm, a few more restroom breaks than usual, lately...?"

"I've been drinking more water," Carlos explains. "Dry mouth from the stimulants."

"Ah," the psychiatrist says, making a note on his tablet. "See, this is why we like to check in. I'll prescribe a counteragent additive for that. Have you noticed any other symptoms from the augmented regimen?"

"Hand tremors at first, but they've mostly stopped."

The doctor nods again, makes another note. "What about mental effects? Difficulties concentrating, mood swings? A sense of displacement, or unusual dreams? Some people experience uncommonly vivid dreams, almost like false memories."

"Nothing like that," Carlos says. "I rarely remember my dreams anyway."

"Excellent, excellent," Dr. Tithoes says. "Judging by the length of your EOD reports, you're really taking to this regimen—it's going to be quite the let-down, when the project is ended! Though if you do exceptionally well, you may be granted another ASAP—always something to look forward to..."

 

* * *

 

Every seven days, all productive workers are rewarded with a weekend restday. On restdays, the good-morning buzzer never sounds. Carlos nevertheless makes himself get up by nine; there may be no wake-up call and no assigned hours, but the company still monitors employee enthusiasm.

There's a pill at breakfast, not green but the standard sunshine-yellow wake-up tablet. Carlos downs it with a couple cups of coffee. Over the cafeteria loudspeakers, Kevin cheerfully reports another beautiful sunny day in Desert Bluffs. _"Rest today, work tomorrow! There are so many company-approved recreational activities you can enjoy. Take Shuttle Eight to the new safari park, where none of the animals are dangerous because they're all lifelike robotic constructs! Or visit the mall on Shuttles Four through Six-B, to shop to your heart's content. Just remember, only by buying mass-produced goods can you be guaranteed to get your scrip's worth; why take a chance on a hand-crafted item that may be inferior to what your neighbor just purchased..."_

Even without his ASAP bonus yet, Carlos's account is full of scrip. He knows he should take advantage of this; a good employee is expected to spend as well as earn. But he can't decide what he wants to do. He scrolls through the housing advertisements and real estate listings filling his email box, uninterested. While a researcher of his rank should have at least an apartment by now, the dorm is adequate for his needs.

Besides, none of the photos, however warm the lighting or wide the models' smiles, show a place that looks to him like home.

He'd go to the lab to put in some overtime, but the shuttle would refuse his S-chip. And he doesn't really feel like going out anyway; the coffee and tablet leave him restless but still lethargic, with a mild headache. In the end he spends the day on the couch in the dorm's Congeniality Lounge, eating NaturFresh-Corn with Real Butter-Flavored Topping and watching TV.

Between the advertisements for Strex subsidiaries they play unified chanting sessions and gladiatorial ring highlights, and then a movie. It's an old black-and-white Western, not a genre Carlos has ever cared much for.

So it's a bit odd that he knows every plot twist of the film, despite having never seen it before. At the finale he finds himself mouthing, _"Nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance!"_ along with the actor, wondering vaguely why the voice sounds wrong to him. Perhaps he saw a remake?

He eats dinner in the dorm cafeteria, at a table by himself. Most of the population is eating out at restaurants, or making meals for themselves according to nutritious company-prepared recipes. Next restday, Carlos tells himself. He'll go shopping, buy fresh ingredients. He can't remember the last time he cooked.

Now he goes to bed. The next morning the good morning buzzer rouses him as usual, and there's a green pill waiting for him at breakfast.

 

* * *

 

Apart from the corporate mandate, Carlos's lack of progress with the bloodstone is becoming personally frustrating. He finds himself talking to the rock under his breath as he works, cursing it, pleading with it.

It occurs to him that neurotic anthropomorphizing might be another stimulant side-effect, but he doesn't report it. He can't afford the chance of them reducing his dosage; he needs every advantage he can get. 

He's running yet another spectrographic analysis and muttering encouragements to the stone, when a voice behind him answers, "Hmm, this is new!"

Carlos jumps up from his desk, nearly dropping his tablet. Not the bloodstone, of course not—but if it's a supervisor—

But no; the newcomer to his lab is a young woman who is neither matte steel nor plastic white, rather an ordinary shade of human brown. Her hair is tied under a kerchief, a restrained and styled stormcloud; and she's wearing a red t-shirt. The logo on the shirt reads _NVCR Internship Program_. It's not a subsidiary Carlos immediately recognizes. "So where am I?" she muses as she turns in place.

"Um, you're in my lab," Carlos tells her. "Can I help you?"

"Oh! Can you hear me?" The young woman turns to him, smiling—a strange smile, her lips not as tightly drawn around the teeth as the norm.

But the smile falls away as she sees Carlos, her brow furrowing.

"Yes, I can hear you?" Carlos replies.

The young woman stares at him, her gaze for some reason shooting up to the top of his head. Carlos reaches up to see if anything is amiss, but no, nothing's there but his hair. It's getting a bit long; he ought to make a barber's appointment. The curls get out of control easily, particularly in the desert heat, so he keeps it cropped short for efficiency's sake. Still, there's hardly enough of it now to be of note.

"I can see you as well," Carlos prods, when the woman doesn't speak. "Is there a reason I shouldn't? What are you doing here?"

The woman shakes her head, as if trying to wake herself from a dream. "...Carlos?" she asks, hesitant, disbelieving.

"Yes?" Carlos doubtfully confirms. If she's not a company employee, the cameras would have spotted her intrusion; a security team will be here any moment.

The woman's smile returns, broad and open, showing her teeth, though not threateningly. "Oh my god, _Carlos!_ You're alive! Does Cecil know? I thought, from the last broadcasts I heard, that you—"

She takes a step towards him—only to wince, glancing down at her feet as if she stubbed her toe, although there's nothing in front of her. "Oops, too far! Sorry, I guess I'm going; but I'll try to make it back here, if I can—"

The security team has yet to arrive. "Wait," Carlos says, reaching to stop her.

But when he touches the sleeve of her t-shirt, his hand passes through it—through her arm itself, as if she were only a cold wind. Carlos squints at this phenomenon. "That's highly atypical..."

The woman's soft brown eyes meet his. She doesn't seem perturbed that his fingers are poking through her seemingly solid limb; her tone is brisk, capable. "Carlos, if I don't return, could you please tell Cecil that I'm still on the mountain, but I'm looking for a way home. I haven't given up hope yet!"

Carlos stares at her, baffled, and asks, "Who's Cecil?"

But before the woman can reply, she vanishes, and Carlos is left standing in his lab, his hand extended before him into empty air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to BlueParabox for correcting my technobabble!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it looks like I'm continuing! ...Actually, now that I've started I'm finding it difficult to stop... *buckles in for a long haul* Thank you so much for the comments--I've been getting a bit frustrated with myself of late, and I can't tell you how encouraging it is, to know that someone wants to read what I'm writing.
> 
> There's some Carlos/other in this chapter. To reassure/warn, the story is still Carlos/Cecil (with me it's unlikely to be anything else, haven't had an OTP this bad in a while...)
> 
> ~

The first thing Carlos does is make a circuit of the lab, on the off-chance the mysterious visitor hid herself behind the particle accelerator or mass spectrometer. But the woman in the red t-shirt is nowhere that he can see.

No guards have arrived, so he picks up the phone, calls down to Security. "Hello, this is Lab 17-OP."

_"Sure, Doc, how can we help you?"_

"Have you registered any recent entrances into my lab, besides myself?"

 _"In the last twenty-four hours? Not that I'm aware, but let me check. ...Nope, your S-chip is the only one registered there. Left last night at 23:58, returned 8:58—like clockwork!"_ It's a compliment, by the encouraging tone.

"You're positive? Was there anything else of note?" Carlos asks. "In the last half hour in particular—did the cameras show any sign of an intruder? An extra heat signature, perhaps?"

 _"Definitely not, we would've contacted you immediately! But I'll review the footage now, just to be sure..._ "

Carlos waits, holding the phone, forcing himself to breathe evenly. The psychiatrist had mentioned vivid dreams.

Nothing about hallucinations, however.

Strex's formulae are patented, protected under strict nondisclosure rules; but the pills which come in the plastic sachets have been extensively tested, are proven safe. If he were allergic he surely would have reacted prior to this. Perhaps it's stress? This is his first ASAP project, after all.

He picks up his tablet, pondering how to best conduct a search of symptoms that won't raise any flags. 

Then he nearly drops the device, as he catches sight of the box flashing on the screen.

The security personnel comes back on the line. " _I don't see anything funny going on. Any special reason you're concerned? We can send up somebody to investigate—"_

"—No...ah, no, thank you," Carlos says hastily, staring down at his tablet. A spike. There was a spike in the scintillation counter's readout. "That won't be necessary. I was mistaken—I thought I'd misplaced something, but I found it." For the sake of the cameras he makes a show of pulling his spare stylus out of his pocket. "I'm sorry for the trouble."

 _"No problem, Doc,"_ the guard says cheerfully. _"You got an ASAP, right? A little paranoia's normal, on that regimen. Keeps us on our toes! You let us know if there's anything else you need."_

"Actually," Carlos says, "would you mind forwarding me the last twenty-four hours' of camera footage from this lab? It would ease my...paranoia, if I could verify for myself that there were no anomalies."

 _"Sure thing, Doc; I'll have it in your mailbox in a jiffy._ "

'A jiffy' proves to be under five minutes, which is long enough for Carlos to confirm the readout on his tablet. The bloodstone's electromagnetic emissions increased for a brief interval, across multiple spectrums. Not to levels high enough for alarm; but more than just background radiation. The elevation only lasted a couple of minutes—the approximate length of time he saw the woman in red.

The security footage includes UV and infrared camera feeds. As stated, none of them show anything. No sign of any woman, or anything else unusual.

Carlos is reviewing the video for the third time before he realizes that the lack of unusual activity is unusual in itself. He clearly remembers addressing the woman. Reaching out to her, his hand passing through her sleeve.

But on the video he doesn't speak to anyone. He does stumble by the spectrometer, pauses for a few moments, like he's had a thought or else his foot's asleep, before he circles back to his desk and picks up the phone. But the audio feed remains silent. 

Was he not hallucinating after all, but just dreaming? Perhaps he dozed off at his desk.

Except the bloodstone's radiation spiked.

He spends the rest of the day trying to reproduce the effect, to no avail. He diagrams his exact steps, repeats the specific spectrographic analyses on the bloodstone; but the stone doesn't radiate again, and no other insubstantial individuals appear.

Finally Carlos quits for the night and goes back to the dorms. In his room, he scrounges in the desk wedged against the bed until he finds a scrap of paper, a receipt from some little ice cream shop that didn't yet have their Strex-scrip exchanger up and running.

He spreads the paper on the back of his tablet, sits on the bed, at an angle that his shoulders will just block the corner camera's line of sight. He writes with a stylus dipped in a mug of overly steeped black tea brought up from the cafeteria. Pens aren't illegal, of course; they're just outdated. He can't remember when he last saw a ballpoint. But this solution came easily to him, for some reason.

Really he should keep these notes on his tablet, where they'd be automatically backed up and searchable. But for now Carlos would rather they didn't get up to Dr. Tithoes and the Psych Ward. At least not until the bloodstone project is completed. They're probably not important anyway. He most likely was hallucinating—possibly induced by the radiation spike; something else to investigate.

His writing is small and crabbed, the shorthand he picked up in grad school that even he can barely read. He writes down:

_NVCR?_  
 _Mountain?_  
 _Cecil?_

He folds the paper into a tiny triangle and tucks it under the insole of his shoe. Then he takes his two sky-blue pills and goes to bed.

 

* * *

 

At Carlos's next appointment with Dr. Tithoes, he avoids any mention of the woman in the red t-shirt. Instead he talks about the bloodstone project, the radiation spike and his failure to reproduce it, or understand the mechanism by which the stone emitted any energy. "Impossible—it's impossible!" he rants, repeating everything from his EOD reports while treading anxious circles on the carpet in front of the psychiatrist's desk. He almost imagines he can hear the paper triangle in his shoe crinkle, every time his right foot comes down.

Dr. Tithoes, for his part, seems unperturbed by Carlos's restlessness. He lets Carlos pace and babble, taking occasional notes. Likely not about the project; the psychiatrist doesn't have the scientific background to understand the specifics. Besides, he has full access to the reports anyway.

At last, when Carlos winds down enough to sit, Dr. Tithoes remarks, "You certainly are keeping busy! But you seem nervous, Carlos; why is that, do you think?"

"It's my first ASAP project," Carlos says. He looks over at the orchid, looks down at his hands, traces his fingers over the ridge of the S-chip in his wrist. Without his tablet in front of him he finds it hard to sit still.

The psychiatrist nods. "The Desert Bluffs facility offers greater and more challenging opportunities. But you must've known that when you applied to transfer here; isn't that why you came?"

That halts Carlos's fidgeting. "I wasn't really thinking about it, at the time."

"Oh? What were you thinking, then?"

"I just wanted a change of pace," Carlos says stiffly. His chest aches; he rubs his sternum to ease it. Even through the lab coat he can feel the scars' rough ridges.

He doesn't really remember the accident, only discrete details, etched into his mind by shock: the bright burst of the explosion, peppering his chest with tiny shards of shrapnel; hands grabbing him, pulling him out of danger; a deep voice speaking an unknown tongue, Slavic vowels, Russian perhaps.

Carlos tries not to remember more than that. Not about the accident, nor after he finally woke up. That was for the best, the psychiatrist had told him—not Tithoes, but his therapist during the months of rehab. _What you need is a change of pace. Put it all behind you and move on._ Nearly two years of his life lost, but he's healed now, back on track—the track he was supposed to be on, since he left academia and was recruited by Strex.

And the company was generous. More than generous; on top of everything else, the medical bills and therapy and the rest, it gave him a second chance here. A chance to forget the past, and its mistakes. "I'd rather not talk about that. About before."

"Yes, of course—always best to live in the present!" Dr. Tithoes says. He looks satisfied, as if he were hoping Carlos would say that. Glancing down at his ubiquitous tablet, he continues, "So you've been here for ten weeks now, Carlos. How are you adjusting? Does our friendly desert community feel like home yet?"

Carlos shrugs, bouncing his knee in three-four time. "As much as anywhere, I suppose. I've always liked the heat, at least."

"What about your social life? Are you seeing anyone at the moment?"

"I'm seeing you right now," Carlos deflects. Tithoes strokes his neatly trimmed beard, and Carlos says, "If you mean am I in a sexual relationship, then no. I hardly have the time for anything like that. I don't even keep a houseplant! I barely have the hours in the day for my science as it is; I neglect my boyfriend...that is, if I had a..." He trails off, unsure where that thought was going.

The psychiatrist makes a thoughtful noise, paging through his tablet. "A boyfriend, interesting. On your initial application you stated you were primarily heterosexual." He smiles encouragingly at Carlos's silence. "I'm not judging, of course! The company has explicit anti-discrimination policies, so you shouldn't let fear of persecution make you hesitate to get involved with anyone. You ought to attend a company mixer, see what you've been missing. There's one at the Grande Reveille next restday. It's for executives, quite exclusive; but I can make sure you're invited."

"I appreciate the offer, but as I said, I don't really have the time." Carlos folds his arms, unfolds them. "Besides, parties aren't especially of interest to me. I tend to find them more stressful than entertaining."

"That, now, I can do something about," Dr. Tithoes says, taking a note. "There, that's two doses, if you decide to make a night of it. It's an entirely optional prescription; your free time is your own, of course, and if you'd prefer to spend your restday wasting time in front of the TV, well, that's up to you! But you may find a bit of socialization invigorating. Even inspiring—an aroused mind is a productive mind, and it seems like you're in need of some productivity...."

 

* * *

 

The night before restday, Carlos stays at the lab until nearly two AM. Without a wake-up alarm, he sleeps past ten, stumbles down to the dorm cafeteria just in time to get the last breakfast coffee. When he returns to his room, there's two pill sachets waiting for him, along with an email on his tablet to say that an invitation to the evening's gala has been uploaded to his S-chip. 

He dithers for most of the day. He avoids the lounge and the TV, instead goes out to get a haircut. On his way back he stops at a grocery store, to make himself a meal, as he told himself he would. Something simple, just pasta and a salad. He checks the ingredient lists and nutrition tables as rigorously as he would any results in the lab. That's a superfluous habit from his time in academia; naturally everything sold in the Strex subsidiary is balanced for optimal worker health.

For all his meticulous inspection, it's not until Carlos gets back to the dorm that he realizes he bought enough food for a couple of people.

Though he has no one to share it with, he cooks up all of it in the communal kitchen. After eating his fill, he leaves the rest in the refrigerator in an untagged container, free for the taking. Saving leftovers has never worked for him; he never remembers to eat them later.

After he's disposed of the dishes and sterilized the counter, it's only just evening. Carlos looks down at the S-chip embedded in his wrist. 

The invitation was a suggestion, entirely optional. But Dr. Tithoes will know if he attends. Will know he's trying. Besides, with the way the bloodstone project is going, this might be his last chance at a social event. Possibly ever.

So Carlos puts on his best pair of slacks and the blazer he wore to his initial interview two years ago, and takes the shuttle over the Grande Reveille. He opens one of the sachets on the ride. The tablet inside is salmon pink, and tastes of cotton candy when it dissolves on his tongue.

The hotel is a magnificent building in classic art deco, situated at the edge of town, the edge of the mesa, overlooking the vast barren desert. The stars are just coming out as Carlos arrives. They look brighter than usual, their white light warmer, and the velvet black behind them softer; he almost reaches out to try to touch it.

He's not the only one climbing the shallow stairs. Behind the windows he can see flickering lights, can hear a thumping bass under the hum of voices. Carlos takes a breath, presents his S-chip to the imposing figure in the doorway, and is ushered inside.

The event is less of a gala or ball and more of a rave; multicolored strobe lights flash over a floor packed with bodies wriggling to the music's electronic pulse. At first Carlos worries about being overdressed; but once he's surrendered his blazer to the coat check and gotten a drink from the open bar, he's too caught up in the music to care. The beat pounds through him like a second heartbeat.

Carlos hasn't gone to a party like this in years, and wasn't one for dancing even when he had; but somehow now he finds himself out on the floor, excitedly thrashing around with everyone else. And somehow after that he finds himself dancing against a particular man, at least Carlos's age, rather old to be able to move so lithely.

They do tequila shots; they dance some more. Eventually they stumble off the floor and into a more private corner, cloaked behind heavy sound-blocking curtains. There's a couch, or maybe it's a wide chair; either way it's big enough for Carlos to straddle his dance partner's lap, grab his face and kiss him while the man shoves up against him eagerly. "Yeah, yeah, baby, like that," he groans.

His voice is low and thick with want, but for some reason hearing it cools things downs instead of heating them up. Carlos rocks back, gulping to catch his breath. The man looks up at him, confused, eyes blown black with lust and chemicals.

"Uh, excuse me," Carlos says, "I haven't, uh, done this—much—like this...I didn't catch your name?"

The man smiles, all confident charm. He smells of sweat, expensive cologne, and blood. "Johnny," he says. "Johnny Peterson, you know, the marketing VP?"

"Um, right," says Carlos, who doesn't actually know any of branches of the company outside of R&D. "Nice to meet you? I'm Carlos—"

"The scientist, yeah, I know," Johnny says. "I approved your transfer here. But I haven't seen you at one of these before, Carlos," and he rocks up his hips to make it clear what kind of seeing he means.

"This is, uh, my first," Carlos says, breathless and distracted. He feels like he's half his age, a college freshman again, younger than everyone and painfully unsure. His palms are sweating. Part of him wants to get closer; another part is too close, wants to get up and flee back to his cool quiet room.

It's only reasonable to be nervous, he tells himself. He hasn't been this intimate with anyone since...he can't remember when. Evidently a while, if he can't even bring it to mind.

"Hey," Johnny says, running a heated hand up Carlos's neck, making him gasp. He takes Carlos's chin, tilts his head to peer into his eyes. "Are you coming down? I can top you off, what do you need?" With his other hand he pulls out a pill case, an executive's set, at least a dozen compartments.

"I...I have a prescription." Carlos fumbles in his own pocket, takes out the second sachet with the pink pill.

Johnny grins. "Always best to follow the doctor's orders."

"It's optional," Carlos says, which is technically true. If he opens the sachet, the RFID tag will mark the pill as consumed, whether or not he swallows it. Or he could save it for another night, another time. "I don't know, I should probably go...I have work tomorrow..."

Johnny shakes his head, plucks the sachet from his hand and rips it wide. "It's restday," he says, teasing, "take your medicine like a good employee," and he puts the tablet to Carlos's lips, then leans up to slide it between them with his tongue, slick and heavy in Carlos's mouth as the tablet sweetly dissolves under it.

When Carlos pulls back, not without some reluctance, Johnny loosens his hold, though he keeps his arms around Carlos's waist. "Relax," he murmurs. "Let it come. So, work, you said...word around the boardroom is that you already pulled an ASAP? After what, only three months here?"

"Two, and yes," Carlos says, perhaps a little pridefully, given his current success rate; but there's something irresistible about impressing such a handsome, self-possessed figure. "With an unlimited budget."

"Neat," Johnny says.

He sounds sincere, even if he's obviously just killing time until Carlos's nerves settle; but Carlos jerks to hear it, almost falling off the other man's lap and nearly elbowing him in the chin in the doing.

"Hey!" Johnny says, ducking and wrapping his arms around Carlos to steady him. "What was that about?"

"Nothing—nothing," Carlos says—honestly, as far as he knows. It might have been a reaction to the drug. Or the other man's unusual proximity. "Excuse me, I didn't..."

"Forget it, you can make it up to me," Johnny says. "For now why don't we go get a drink, calm you down."

Two more shots achieves the optimal balance of relaxed and reckless. They dance again—or more accurately, grind clumsily against one another, arms entangled and hips thrusting, panting and eager. Johnny is speaking; Carlos can feel his lips moving against his skin, but can't hear his voice over the music. When the executive tries to pull them back behind the curtains again, Carlos resists. He wants this, but he also wants the music, wants the thumping bass drowning out his partner's voice in his ear. Drowning the endless chatter of thoughts in his own head in pure sensation.

He closes his eyes, so there's only the music, beating in time with the strobes flashing behind his lids, with the pulsing heat of the body rubbing against his. Pressure arches his spine like a bow, aching and glorious, and he loses himself in it.

Carlos resurfaces to find himself on the 1 AM shuttle, alone, heading back to the dorm. His face is hot and his head is spinning pleasantly. It's a fight not to nuzzle the shuttle's seats like a cat, to keep himself from pressing his cheek against the covers to feel every smooth fold and wrinkle of vinyl against his sensitized skin. He resists, mostly. It's a restday night anyway; the other passengers are just as well-medicated, laughing and oblivious. 

When he finally gets back to his room, he barely gives the door time to lock behind him before he's bracing against it, hand down his pants, shuddering in breathless giggles as he brings himself off. Afterwards he showers, flops face-down on the bed and drifts off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

A couple hours later Carlos jolts, gasping, out of a dream that has his heart thudding louder than the music, but fades into oblivion the moment his eyes snap open. He reaches out blindly, anxious for comfort from—

His knuckles bark against the wall, jarring him fully awake. He's alone in his company bed, in his company room, as he should be. No one came back with him tonight. He's never had another person in this room.

He's never awoken in the middle of the night, either. Carlos groans into his pillow as he realizes he forgot to take his nightly blue pills. He squints at the clock—past three AM, too late for a dose now.

He's exhausted and far from sober, but he can't get back to sleep, tossing and turning. The room feels too small and yet too empty at once. He's never been claustrophobic, but staring at the windowless walls now he feels like he's underground, trapped, buried. His chest aches; he rubs it, feeling the rough scar tissue from the lab accident.

Finally he gets up, fumbles through the dark to the shoes he kicked off. He takes out the slip of paper, reads it by the dim glow of the tablet's screen.

_NVCR? Mountain? Cecil?_

He mouths the meaningless words like a chant, until the darkness pressing around him retreats a little. Then he folds up the paper, returns it to the shoe, and logs into his corporate account on the tablet, calling up his research. If he can't sleep, he can at least get some work done.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This just in: Strex is terrible. See the end notes for more specific warnings.

Dr. Tithoes may have had a point. Once his breakfast dose clears away his restday fatigue and hangover, Carlos has his most productive day yet on the bloodstone project. While the rock no longer radiates, he finally identifies the specific wavelengths recorded when the woman appeared. Based on this, Carlos manages to assemble a detector. 

The next morning, a supervisor and two research technicians are waiting for him in his lab. Carlos has met this supervisor once before, during his orientation. Her name is Giselle, and that's the only soft thing about her; the rest is all harsh angles and gunmetal gray. Her voice grates metallically as she states, "Your EOD report indicated a successful result. Is this accurate?"

"Not a complete success yet," Carlos says. "But one step closer to a solution. As you can see here, I've jury-rigged a silicon vertex detector with reverse-biased diodes—" He knows the consequences if the supervisor gives him an unsatisfactory evaluation, but he's almost too excited to care. He gets too little opportunity to talk about his work, to share it with anyone who might understand it. And Giselle and the lab techs listen with gratifying attention as he shows off his prototype.

"It can't detect this bloodstone at present," he explains, indicating his sample, "as it's inert, not radiating. But if the emissions I previously observed happen to repeat, or if other bloodstones radiate comparably, then this device could potentially track them."

"At what distance, and though how much interference?" one of the lab techs asks.

"Variable. I don't know where these stones are commonly mined; detection would be conditional on the soil density—"

"Minimum required distance is fifteen meters," the other lab tech says, consulting her tablet, "and through at least four walls."

"Walls?"

"Will the device detect stones within manmade structures?"

"That depends on the properties of the structure, whether plaster, wood, concrete, et cetera," Carlos says. "Are bloodstones commonly found within buildings...?"

"This is good work, Carlos," Giselle says. Her smile is perfect, the angles of her mouth meeting the employee manual's emotional and social expressions standard to the millimeter. "Really, quite acceptable." She nods at the lab techs. "Crate it up."

"That detector's just a prototype," Carlos cautions. "And unless you have a way to consistently reproduce the emissions—"

"That's the next phase of the project, then," Giselle says. "Finding a way to activate bloodstone radiation. Can you do that for us, Carlos? Or would you prefer a new assignment?"

A new assignment—a less important, less interesting assignment. Probably not an ASAP; opportunities such as this only come along once in a while. And less to those who show a lack of motivation. 

Carlos doesn't hesitate. "I'd like to keep working on the bloodstone.—If that serves the company's needs, of course."

Giselle's pleased expression is as flawless and fixed as a die-cast mold. "Excellent."

 

* * *

 

When Carlos enters the restroom, he finds a woman standing before the stalls.

He would think he entered the wrong bathroom, but no, Dr. Blanchard is over by the far sink, methodically cleaning the mirror. Before he can ask the woman if she's the one mistaken, she exclaims, "Carlos!"

Though she looks somewhat familiar, she's not the woman who appeared in his lab before. This woman is older, her complexion a few shades lighter and her eyes a few shades darker, and she's wearing a white lab coat instead of a red t-shirt. Still, her appearance at this particular location is as unexpected. "I can see you?" Carlos says experimentally.

"In your lab, yes, I know—I tried, but I don't have the clearance to enter," the woman says. "And our lunch shifts aren't overlapping now, but I needed to see you."

When she takes a step nearer he notices the diamond pin of the geology department on her lapel, and realizes she's his colleague from the cafeteria. He has yet to learn her name, and he can hardly recognize her now. Her bun is in messy disarray and makeup can't conceal the dark hollows under her eyes; but it's the lack of practiced smile that made her difficult to identify.

"Uh, hi—what's this about?" Carlos asks. 

"I need..." She rakes a hand through her hair, tangling it further as she stares at him. "I just can't stop thinking about you..."

"I'm, um, afraid I'm not currently seeking a romantic partner," Carlos says, glancing from her wild eyes to the helpful poster on the wall behind her. _Good workers look out for one another!_ its colorful text reads. _Watch for these signs of overdose or underdose among your colleagues:_

He only gets as far as _contracted pupils_ and _pessimism_ when his colleague flings herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck.

It's not the suddenness of the action but a deeper instinct, perhaps triggered by the curl of her fingers or the determined set of her mouth, that makes Carlos move. His body reacts before he can consider it. As her hand brushes his neck, he ducks and twists, grabs her wrists and heaves up to flip her over his shoulder. 

She lands on her back on the restroom tile, blinking up at him, winded but more surprised than hurt. "How'd you...do that?"

"I'm not sure," Carlos admits. Luck, he supposes; certainly he didn't have time for a self-defense course along with the physical therapy.

Dr. Blanchard continues to polish his mirror, humming to himself, oblivious to the two scientists on the floor behind him. Still holding the geologist's wrist, Carlos takes the bit of plastic clutched in her hand, examines it.

The prickle-patch is an intravenous injection system, its nanotube needles delivering their dose as quickly as a syringe, but without a visible mark. The needles are still withdrawn; she couldn't apply enough pressure to inject.

The drug under the patch's plastic membrane is bright magenta. A restday prescription, absolutely forbidden at the workplace. In its injected form, it's known as _fast-track_ , for how it aids in promotions by way of eliminating competition. The most recent victim, for instance, serenaded and then tried to fellate a CFO in the middle of a board meeting.

This patch's dose is large enough to have spared Carlos such public humiliation. But he couldn't complete the ASAP if he spent the rest of the week in a blissful coma, and by the time he woke up it would've been too late to defend himself.

He folds the prickle-patch in half to disengage it, stows it in his pocket. Then he releases the geologist's wrists, letting her scramble back. Carlos cocks his head at her, more curious than angry. "We're not even in the same division. So why...?"

The geologist rubs her shoulder, glaring at him. "You're on the bloodstone tracking project, aren't you. Don't bother denying it; your name hasn't been on the data, but it's the only current ongoing ASAP I know of, and you're still getting the green pills, last I saw."

"So you want the project for yourself?" Carlos asks.

"It was ours to begin with—it should have been ours all along! It's a project for real scientists, not some R&D hotshot who falsifies data to make the executives happy—"

"I didn't falsify anything."

"You couldn't have possibly built a working detector after only two weeks with a single bloodstone! My team had the stones for months, and we never observed anything like the radiation you reported—"

"You've studied the bloodstones as well?" Carlos asks, excited. "I'd like to see your research; I wasn't aware any extensive data had been collected on the other stone."

"Stones, now," the geologist says, and then, at his questioning look, "You hadn't heard?"

 

* * *

 

The geology lab is three times the size of Carlos's own, though with the same stainless steel counters and polished white tile floor. Of the most interest to Carlos, however, is the crate of a full dozen bloodstones.

"They were acquired two days ago, and given to us to certify," the geologist explains. " _Supposedly_ they were located using your prototype detector."

"So it does work!" Carlos grins out of purely scientific triumph. "Do you have records of the field tests, by any chance? And have you measured these stones' emissions? I only observed a single radiation spike before, but for the detector to be effective these must have been emitting as well—"

The geologist glowers at him. Then, reluctantly, she brings out her tablet, calls up data tables. "Even if they were, they're not radiating at any detectable frequency now. The new bloodstones are identical in composition to the previous samples, and nothing in their mineraloid structure is indicative of radioactivity—"

"Yes, I know, that's why reproducing the phenomenon is so challenging—oh! You have a complete work-up of the ferric inclusions, wonderful! Are these oxidation levels as unusual as they seem, or—"

Engrossed in this wealth of new data, Carlos doesn't hear the lab's door open. The first he notices of the security team is when the cold muzzle of a tranq-stun presses to his neck, and a colder voice demands, "You were not authorized to enter this laboratory. Identify yourself."

Carlos freezes. "I'm a company researcher," he says, slowly raising his arm to expose his implanted wrist. "I have access." Should have access, anyway. If he was barred, his S-chip should have raised a flag at the lab's access panel.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees the geologist sidle back. Her expression is furtive. Maybe guilty. No need to ask who called security. But he does wonder how she disabled his S-chip. And whether it's still disabled. If he's two floors from his lab, with a non-functional implant...

A gloved hand clamps around his wrist, but before his chip can be scanned, a brassy voice behind him rings out, "Carlos? So here you are." 

Giselle is standing in the lab's doorway, holding her productivity inspiration rod. "You should recognize one of our top researchers," the supervisor tells the security personnel. "Release him immediately."

The gloved hand around his wrist snaps open, and the tranq-stun pulls back from his neck. The security detail retreats, muttering apologies, and are dismissed.

"I just received an alert that you were absent from your lab, Carlos," Giselle says, tapping her inspiration rod against her palm. It clanks dully with each impact, punctuating her flat recitation. "I was about to issue a facility-wide emergency search scan, when the unauthorized personnel notification came in. What are you doing here?"

"I, ah...." Carlos glances at the geologist, backed up against the lab counter as if being crowded by an invisible force. "I'm consulting with the geologists about the newly acquired bloodstones," he says. "Why wasn't I informed about the field trial, or the new samples?"

"Those acquisitions are earmarked for another department, now that they've been certified," Giselle states. "They weren't intended for R&D."

"Additional samples will advance my research," Carlos says. "I need these bloodstones, if I'm going to complete this project ASAP."

Giselle goes still for a moment, but for the amber diode set in her temple above her ear, blinking as she transmits to her own supervisors. After a moment she says, "All right. These bloodstones will be granted to your custody for the project's duration."

"But what about our research?" the geologist breaks in, clutching her tablet like a shield before her. "We haven't finished our own experiments—

The supervisor's steely gaze shifts from Carlos to the other scientist. "Your research has been discontinued; now that you've completed the certification, your team is no longer assigned to the bloodstone project. As previously announced, the geology department is being downsized. You'll be given a new assignment, and your subordinates will be transferred and retrained."

The geologist sets her jaw defiantly. "And as I told you previously, I'll only take on a new project _with_ my team."

Giselle gazes at the scientist, clasping her inspiration rod in both hands. Then her lips move into a supervisor's faultlessly programmed smile. "That's just the cooperative spirit we like to see at Strex," she says. "Very well; I'll recommend that you be transferred and retrained with the rest of your research team."

"But...please..." The geologist staggers, leans against the counter behind her. "I have a family..."

"You'll continue to be able to support them. Your loyal years with the company guarantees you a generous salary, as well as your working visa, whatever your position."

Carlos can see the geologist's throat move as she swallows. "And what position will that be?" she asks faintly.

"It depends," the supervisor says. "I believe the company has a need for receptionists at this time. 4th Stage retraining will leave you with nearly complete vocalization ability; you'll still be able to pronounce your son's and husband's names. Micah and Bobby, isn't it? And of course, all retrained employees achieve maximum job satisfaction; that's a guarantee of the procedure. So you needn't worry; just be grateful for the company's generosity."

"Of course," the geologist says, nodding stiffly. "Thank you." Her face has gone gray, knuckles whitening as she clutches the counter. "I appreciate the consideration."

For some reason Carlos thinks of Dr. Blanchard in the bathroom, cleaning the mirrors with maximum satisfaction. That isn't why he steps forward, however. "Wait."

Giselle's steel gaze rotates to him. "With so many new samples, I'll need assistants in my research," Carlos says. "More specialized than lab technicians. At least..." He glances back at the geologist. "How many are on your team?"

The geologist stares at him, but blurts, "Four, counting myself."

"—At least four scientists," Carlos says. "Geologists, preferably, as my minerology experience is limited."

For a long moment Giselle looks at him, her inspiration rod clanking against her hand, in time with the diode blinking in her temple. Then she says, "Very well. Submit a personnel requisition by 17:00 today. And I'll clear your access to this lab as well as your own." She spins on her heel and departs, precisely as a clockwork doll on a track.

As the door slides shut behind them, the geologist lets out a gasping breath, drops to the floor and puts her head between her knees.

Carlos rubs his wrist, feeling the bump of the implant beneath his skin. "Is my S-chip permanently damaged?" he asks.

The geologist shakes her head. Her head is down, tangled hair hanging over her eyes. She catches her breath, says, "Temporary; I just flashed the firmware, reset it to factory standard. Logging in to your tablet will restore it."

Carlos takes out his tablet, swipes it on. The login is delayed, but confirms his S-chip is linked in. He nods with relief. She hadn't been trying to get him incarcerated, only in enough short-term trouble to be delayed and demoted. Such consideration bodes well for their future collaboration. He brings up the personnel requisition form, says, "I'll need full names and IDNs to make the request."

The geologist pushes herself to her feet, shoves her hair out of her eyes to face him. Her hand is trembling. Her shoulders are, too. "Why'd you do this, after what I tried? What do you want?"

"Your knowledge," Carlos explains. "Assistants already versed in the bloodstones are obviously more effective. Besides, receptionists aren't in such short supply in the general workforce that the company can't hire externally. I presume at least one of you is a minerologist?"

"Fritz has the PhD; my masters thesis was on geometallurgy..."

"Good," Carlos says. "What's your name?"

"...You don't even know my name?" The geologist shakes her head again. "It's Nisa. Nisa Chaibancha." She spells it for him, along with the names of her three subordinates, and their employee ID numbers. When he submits the form, she sags back against the counter with a long exhalation.

Carlos regards her. Technically until the requisition is approved, he's not her superior. But such irrational temper and panic as she's exhibited are symptomatic of withdrawal. He finally opts to phrase it as a suggestion rather than a directive. "Perhaps you should request a temporary booster from Psych?"

Nisa looks away, too late to hide the shrinkage of her pupils, black dots squeezed tiny by dark brown irises; and her sclera are bloodshot. And she's still shaking slightly. "I'm all right. We've just been pulling late nights, so I've been rationing, to have some in reserve. You know how it goes."

"Regimens are carefully calculated and prescribed; hoarding doses can lead to considerable physiological and psychological imbalance," Carlos reminds. It's presumptuous to quote the company handbook to a woman who might have been hired before he started high school; but he knows how stress can muddle one's cognition. And he'd just as soon avoid another bathroom ambush. "Plus, it's important that you're on your proper schedule when you start the ASAP regimen."

"Yes, right." The geologist rakes her fingers through her hair, pulling it back and retying it. "I'll contact the Ward, see if I can get a booster." Her smile is an unsteady shadow of her usual skillful cheer; but her voice is oddly solid, when she says, "Thank you, Carlos."

"You're welcome," Carlos replies, bemused.

 

* * *

 

Requisitioned, rested, and on their new psychoactive regimens, Nisa and the other three geologists prove to be ideal assistants. They're knowledgeable and friendly, and analyze the newly acquired bloodstones with commendable expedience. 

Carlos finds he enjoys working with them. While he still has his individual lab, most of the workday he joins the geologists in their larger workspace. They listen to the radio as they research and experiment, laughing together at Kevin's jokes and repeating the more inspiring platitudes in companionable echoes. 

Carlos doesn't really remember what work he did in the short time after he was hired and before the accident. He doesn't recall where the facility was located or what the project was, much less who his coworkers were. But still, there's a familiarity to working with other Strex scientists now. It's different from academia, but he falls into the role of team leader like he's been doing it for years. And occasionally when he addresses one of his new colleagues, other names will be on the tip of his tongue; though none of those inklings resolve into actual syllables. 

When he mentions this to Dr. Tithoes as his next weekly session, the psychiatrist gently points out that whoever his former colleagues were, not one of them has contacted Carlos since he arrived here. Work acquaintances only, long since moved on; he's better off forgetting them, as they've obviously forgotten him. It hurts, but only distantly. His regimen ensures that he doesn't suffer from pointless depression about the past. He's here to make a fresh start, and new relationships are part of this.

To that end, Carlos tells Dr. Tithoes of his experience at the executive mixer. He avoids details, or his partner's name, though the psychiatrist surely has seen the couple emails Johnny Peterson sent him—nothing explicit, only a couple casual invitations to dinner or coffee; but Carlos's cheeks warm to read them. He hasn't replied back yet. Maybe after the bloodstone project is completed.

So well is he adapting to the new routine, that it's almost a shock when Giselle appears in the geology laboratory, and tells Carlos, "The Director of Acquisitions would like a word with you."

The geologists all watch him follow the supervisor out of the lab. The problem with corporately mandated smiles is that it can be difficult to tell if the wide eyes over them are expressing envy, or horror.

In the elevator, the gold light in Giselle's temple blinks. A pleasant alto issues from the control panel, _"Please hold while I check your appointment,"_ followed by, _"The director will see you now."_

The drop of his stomach is Carlos's only indication that the elevator is moving. "Don't be too anxious," Giselle advises him as they rise. "The director is an important man; he has no time for unnecessary panic attacks."

The control panel glows amber, and the elevator's doors slide open, depositing them in a high-ceilinged chamber. Skylights and floor-to-ceiling windows let in the desert sunlight, shining on the office's ascetic white walls and stainless decor.

A man is waiting for them by the elevator door. He is wearing an impeccable three-piece suit with narrow yellow pinstripes, and a helm of smooth, featureless gold, polished to sunny brilliance. The helm curves down over his face, so that all that shows of his features is a rounded chin flecked with ruddy stubble, and a broad, white-toothed smile.

"Hello, Carlos, so glad you could make the time to come up here. Huck Aldis, Acquisitions Director," the helmed man introduces himself, extending his hand. Carlos returns the handshake with a polite deferral. The director's grip is strong, his palm smooth and dry.

"Would you mind if I did a little work as we talked?" Aldis asks. "I'm kind of in the middle of something—just a side-project; but it's time-sensitive. Make hay and all that," and he gestures to the sun shining outside the windows.

"All right," Carlos says, since there's little else he can, and follows the director into the office. Giselle doesn't join them, but turns to the right to step into a charging station conveniently placed by the elevator. Its blue light glows over her as she rotates to face the wall.

Despite the layer of gold over his eyes and ears, the director moves surely, his feeds providing full context of his environment. Grit grinds under Carlos's shoes as they cross the office; the floor is coated in a layer of fine sand or powder, glittering in the sun. It's raked into careful patterns, like a Zen rock garden.

The director's desk is a massive, rectangular obelisk of steel. Set on it are the orange triangle of his nameplate, and a picture frame with a photo of a woman and two children with pixelated faces. In the middle of the desk, a plastic tarp is draped over some large, uneven shape.

There is a single chair precisely centered before the desk, of the same stainless steel, with the hard right angles of an electric chair. Aldis indicates for Carlos to take this seat. "Make yourself comfortable. Can I get you anything to drink? I've got a great ginger beer, we just bought the bottlers."

"No, thank you," Carlos demurs, sitting rigidly on the chair's rigid seat.

"Suit yourself." Aldis circles back around his desk, takes a glass bottle of ginger beer out from a compartment and pops its cap. Then he snaps on a pair of yellow latex gloves, and flicks back the plastic tarp with the casual motion of experience. 

At first glance the body underneath could be mistaken for a child, but the proportions are all wrong, arms too long, legs too short. It's some kind of larger primate, a chimpanzee or perhaps an orangutan, shaved bare, its head swathed in bandages. Its chest has been opened like a dissected frog, folds of flesh pinned aside and rib cage splayed, viscera glistening in the bright sunlight.

Aldis takes a sip of soda. With his other hand he picks up a silvery needle, at least forty centimeters long, from a tray beside the creature's body. "So, Carlos," he says, "my good friend Johnny—Johnny Peterson, you know, the marketing VP?—Johnny tells me that you're one of the brightest men he knows. Smart as a whip, Johnny says. Which is why I wanted to talk to you one-on-one."

Aldis lifts the needle, cocks his golden helmeted head in evaluation, then in a swift, practiced gesture pushes it into the creature's inert body. Carlos is at the wrong angle to see where it hits, and doesn't try; with effort he keeps his gaze on the director's golden helmet. "You see," Aldis continues, "you've been on the bloodstone project nearly a month now—a _month_! On an ASAP project! I'm not saying it's an easy gig, of course not...but still, a whole month."

Carlos takes a breath, holds it in his lungs until he's sure his voice will come out steady. "As I've explained in my EOD reports, the—"

The director raises one finger from his ginger beer bottle. Carlos closes his mouth, as Aldis continues, "But I was thinking, if you're really as smart as Johnny makes you out to be, maybe you just haven't been given the proper motivation." He selects a second needle, places it. "I know plenty of you scientist types. Have worked with you for years. I've got an idea how your minds tick. It's not just about the money or material rewards. You're higher minded than that. Scientists want to know the _whys_. Why do we do this, why do we want this, why does this work. I get it."

He pushes in the needle. "So my thought was, maybe it'd help if you really understood why we need these stones. When you get down to it, Carlos, do you get what we do here at Strex? Not all our subsidiaries, but the parent company, what we're all working for—do you know what we make?"

"Money," Carlos says confidently.

"Hah!" Aldis barks a laugh, snapping his white teeth together under the helmet. "You scientists don't beat around the bush. I can see why Johnny likes you. Yeah, we make money. But what matters is what the money is for. We're making a future, Carlos. We're making _the_ future. The future for all the world—one future, in one enterprise, under one Smiling God. Bit by bit, sale by sale, we're bringing everything up to our standard."

He picks up a third needle, clinks it idly against the soda bottle. "These bloodstones, now, do not meet that standard. They're not up to code, you could say. It's like asbestos—you know, they put it into the walls to be safe. To keep people's homes and schools and workplaces from burning down. But then we learned it was hurting the people in those homes and schools and workplaces, so all the asbestos had to be removed.

"That's the price of progress, unfortunately. Some things seemed like _such_ a good idea at the time, but now we know better. Asbestos. Lead paint. Trans fats. Newspapers. Independent thought. And now, these bloodstones. And people don't even know it, that's the worst part; they don't understand what they're risking."

"How are the bloodstones dangerous?" Carlos asks. "None of the properties we've documented are obviously hazardous to humans. Even the radiation emissions are at too low frequencies, hardly worse than, say, radio waves."

"Radio—yeah, there's another one! But we're talking about the bloodstones. They might _seem_ innocuous; scientifically speaking they might not cause actual harm to people. But what they can do—what they represent, and what that could do to our efforts—I don't even want to think about it." The director shakes his golden head, then tilts it down toward his desk as if recalled to the task at hand. He leans over to position his third needle as he continues, "The important thing for you to understand is that, by giving us a way to find these bloodstones, you'll be _helping_ people. Helping all of us—helping yourself, your colleagues—by helping Strex. Do you get what I'm saying, Carlos?"

He thrusts the needle home. There is a noise, a terrible guttural croak, and the creature's body on the desk twitches. It's still alive, Carlos realizes, at least by some definition of life.

Director Aldis frowns, a disembodied downward arc of lips, under the golden helmet. Then he shrugs and reaches under his desk.

"Oh well," he says. "Can't say I didn't try." He clicks a hidden button and takes a step back. Streams of roaring blue flame pour from two nozzles set in the desk. Their heat beats against Carlos's face like sunshine, the skin of his face tightening as it dries.

In seconds the combustion reduces the hairless, twitching body to ash. The flame flickers out. The tarp underneath is uncharred.

Aldis puts down his bottle of ginger beer to pull the tarp off the desk, shaking out the ash with a snap of his wrists. None of it settles in the crisp lines of his suit, or on the desk's polished metal surface. The director folds the tarp and tucks it into his desk, then says, "Did you hear me, Carlos?"

"Y-yes." Carlos swallows, with effort holds himself still. His heart is pounding like when he first started on the ASAP regimen. "I understand. The company needs to find the bloodstones, before they can harm our interests."

"Exactly! Couldn't put it better myself." Aldis peels off the latex gloves, splattered with a bit of glistening fluids, and also disposes of them behind the desk. "And that's where your project comes in—should've come in weeks ago, was the hope. Especially after you gave us that prototype detector. But it's not enough, the way most of these damn stones are hidden.

"So here's the deal, Carlos. You're going to put that brilliant brain of yours to good use, and give us a solution by next week. Or else you and your assistants will be taken off this project, and retrained for positions in the company more suited to your abilities."

"Only a week?" Carlos says. "But you've read my reports—we're still analyzing the stones; we need more data before we can even hypothesize how to elicit the emissions—"

The director picks up his soda bottle, tipping the neck towards Carlos like an admonishing finger. "Now that's the thing about scientists that I don't like so much. Data and data and more data; never just trusting your guts. But you're an intelligent man. How about this: in three days, you and your team will give a presentation. Nothing fancy, just show us an activated bloodstone. We're not picky how you do it, as long as we get some results." He inclines his helmeted head. "Three whole days—sounds fair to you? Or can you do it in two?"

Carlos catches his breath, forces through numb lips, "Three days sounds very fair. Thank you, sir."

"Please, call me Huck. No need to stand on ceremony when it's just us." Aldis sips more ginger beer, tilting back the bottle to empty it and gives a burp of satisfaction when he's done. "Sure you don't want one for the road?"

"No, thank you. Huck."

The director smiles. "You know, I think I like you, Carlos. I admit, I wasn't sure about bringing you on—I was one of the guys to review your application, and you seemed like too big a risk, given your past, ah, history. But it was a good call. You've got a bit of the old go-getter in you. If you pull this off, I can see you going far in StrexCorp."

"Thank you," Carlos says again.

"I'll be looking forward to your presentation. Now..." Aldis sighs and sets down the bottle. "It's been great getting to know you, but my assistant will give me hell if I don't make my next appointment. And I guess you've got science to be doing. Giselle will see you down."

Carlos stands from the hard chair, stiff and sore. "Thank you, Huck," he says one more time.

"Good luck with your project!" Aldis replies. "And tell Johnny I said hi, if you see that reprobate anytime soon."

"I will," Carlos says. He turns, walks back to the elevator. He is careful not to hurry, but not to dawdle, either; and ash grates under the soles of his shoes with each step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: harm to an unnamed animal, vivisection (not graphically described; but if you're not in the mood, skip to the end when Carlos meets the Strex director.)
> 
> This fic is darker than my usual, and I'm not versed in giving warnings. If there's anything (in this story or any of my others) that you'd have preferred a warning for, please let me know.
> 
> Next chapter: Dana returns...


	4. Chapter 4

Paul is the youngest of the geologists, hired right out of grad school. This is his first ASAP project. He snaps thirty-eight hours before the deadline. One minute he's bent over the electronic microscope; the next he's dashed the chip of bloodstone sample to the floor, crushing it to powder under his heel as he howls at the ceiling, " _God's smile is setting! It's setting! We will all be lost to darkness!!"_

It takes the combined efforts of Carlos and Lucille to hold him down. Nisa hits him with an emergency tranquilizer from the lab's first aid kit, while Fritz calls security and the Ward. Going through Paul's pockets, they find half a dozen opened pill sachets. Either he was hoarding or he got them off the black market. However he managed it, the misuse gets him removed from the ASAP.

The next day Lucille doesn't show up for work. Nisa is distracted all morning, checking the time on her tablet. At lunch she makes some calls, and learns that Lucille called in sick. As per protocol she was taken from her apartment by a team from Medical; Nisa can't get any more information.

"And then there were three," Fritz says. He's a couple years younger than Carlos but has been with the company longer; he has the morning affirmations memorized, and maintains a blog of Kevin's quotes. By Carlos's estimate he's responsible for at least fifty percent of the talk in the geology lab; but he struggles now to keep up the conversation without half his colleagues.

They're too busy for such socializing anyway. They have until tomorrow morning to make the bloodstones radiate.

They've tried temperature, freezing the stones, heating them to melting point. They've subjected them to gamma ray bombardment, focused sunlight, electric current, and magnetic fields. They've broken the stones apart, exposed them to open flame, open vacuum, water, acids, and every other chemical in the extensive supplies cabinet, including StrexCorp additives and advanced technological enhancement formulae. 

Nothing has had any measurable effect. None of the monitors have recorded any fluctuations in any of the stones' radiation.

That evening, after Kevin signs off the radio, Nisa puts down the laser beam welder and says, "Whatever else you know, Carlos, now is the time to try it."

"What do you mean?" Carlos asks. "You know everything I do; you've read all my research a dozen times by now."

"Word around the watercooler was that you were given this project because you had prior knowledge," Fritz says. "Past experience with bloodstones, or something like them, at the facility before your transfer here."

Carlos looks at the two geologists' expectant expressions, and reluctantly shakes his head. "I'm sorry to say, but rumors among scientists are no more accurate than those among other populations. The only work I did before my transfer was intensive physical therapy. And I'd never even heard of bloodstones until I was assigned this project."

"Then how the hell did you activate the stone before?" Nisa asks.

She sounds a little shaky. Carlos gives her and Fritz a closer look, evaluating their pupils and complexions, as he says, "As explained in my reports, it was coincidence that I happened to be observing the bloodstone when its emissions spiked. We've replicated every experiment I did that day; as far as I can determine, it was an entirely random event. Did you take your lunchtime doses?"

The geologists exchange a furtive glance. "We're going to be here all night; better to have a pick-up later," Fritz says. "And the Ward's being stingy about extra doses. You know how fussy they are about this regimen."

"Because it's a carefully balanced schedule," Carlos says, but he can't blame them. They've barely got twelve hours left, and the geologists don't get a dinner dose. Carlos contemplates delaying his own final green pill of the day, just for a few hours; but opts not to risk it. He can't afford unpredictable withdrawal effects now.

By midnight he's regretting this. He's been pulling too long nights for too many workdays, even on an ASAP regimen; while he doesn't yet feel tired, his eyes are gritty, and he's finding it harder to focus. His thoughts keep drifting back to the one aspect of the bloodstone's original emission event which he did not include in any report. 

He hasn't told the geologists, or anyone else, about the mysterious woman's appearance. After all, the most probable explanation is that she was a stress-induced hallucination, and the bloodstone's emissions were only a coincidence. His colleagues are already under enough stress; they don't need to know of his possible psychotic episodes as well.

Besides, even if she somehow were real, by some broad definition of reality, Carlos has no idea how to summon her again. 

The clock passes 0100. Eight hours left, and Carlos has nothing. Or nothing else. "I'm going down to my lab," he tells the geologists, trying to ignore the hope in their eyes.

He takes four of the bloodstones with him. Three of the stones he sets up in individual radiation monitors. The fourth, his original sample, he places in the spectrometer, making sure the machine is precisely calibrated and situated. He precisely situates himself as well, following the notes he took at the time, and activates the spectrometer, repeating every test he ran that prior day.

The radio is broadcasting its post-midnight reminders about well-rested employees. Carlos turns the sound as low as it will go and fills the quiet with his own ordinary voice. "I know this is a long shot, but you said you would try to return, if possible. If you can, if you've found a way, now may be your last chance to talk with me. There is a high probability that I'll be reassigned tomorrow; and depending on what retraining I receive, I may not be able to communicate with you again. So, if you can come here now..."

He stops. He waits. The spectrometer's lights blink to indicate it's completed the current scan. Otherwise nothing happens. Carlos sighs, primarily out of regret for this lapse of rationality. He hopes security isn't watching too closely; they might pass that rant on to Dr. Tithoes. Or perhaps not; he won't be on an ASAP project after tomorrow, so will no longer require such oversight.

He's taking the bloodstone out of the spectrometer when his tablet chimes—the alarm he set on the feed monitoring the bloodstones' emissions.

Carlos spins around.

The young woman is standing in the exact spot where he saw her before. She looks the same as he remembers: red t-shirt, cloud of black hair under her kerchief. She waves at him, smiling her strange, too-wide smile. "Hello, Carlos! Can you still see me?"

For an insane moment Carlos wonders if she's an angel—

_—Angels aren't real—_

—but the smiling God has no need for a heavenly host, with an earthly one as great as StrexCorp. Still, that she would appear here, now, is as close to a miracle as Carlos can recall experiencing.

He nods slowly, almost afraid to move, and risk her vanishing. "Yes, I can see you."

The woman exhales. "Phew! I'm so glad to hear that. You don't properly appreciate perception until you're imperceptible."

Carlos sidles a step over to get a better look at the tablet on his desk. The detectors are registering elevated radiation from all three monitored bloodstones. "I'm glad to see you, too," he says. "I was wondering if I'd imagined you."

The woman's smile falters. "I don't _believe_ I'm a figment of your imagination; but then, belief is only one aspect of being. Do you usually imbue your figments with self-awareness?"

"Not to my knowledge..."

"Then there's a reasonable chance I'm real. I think," the woman says. "I was beginning to wonder myself...I've been having a harder time finding my way here, or anywhere but the mountain. And my phone's battery died—or reincarnated as light? Or just exploded?—so I haven't been able to text anymore, or listen to the radio. But I heard your voice again, so I tried turning, just slightly sideways, and here I am! Did you tell Cecil that you saw me?"

Carlos hesitates. The woman cocks her head at him, curious, hopeful. Carlos glances at the readings stabilizing on his tablet. Definitely at higher levels than the baseline. He needs to observe her further, convince her to stay as long as possible. So he says, "Yes, I told him."

"Thank you!" Her smile returns like a light switched back on. "I'm glad he knows I'm still here, at least. And he'd report it, so my mother and brother should know, too. Knowing that will help—whenever I start to feel tired, or bored, or frustrated, trying to walk from the mountain, I can tell myself, Dana, you have to keep trying! There are people waiting for you to come home!" and she claps her hands with a defiant flourish.

There is a dull ache in Carlos's gut, as if his lie were a stone he swallowed. But the geologist Nisa has a family, too. And this woman—Dana?—is a stranger, even if she inexplicably knows his name. She might not even be part of the company. "I'm sure you'll make it," he says, trying to match her heartening tone. 

Dana's eyes on him are too bright, too sharp, more warm brown iris than black pupil. "What's wrong, Carlos?" she asks. "You look upset...no, not upset. Concerned. You look concerned. 

"I'm, ah, a bit tired, that's all," Carlos says. "It's quite late here."

"You're sure?" Dana asks, clasping her hands together as if she wishes she could hold his own. "Is there anything wrong with Night Vale? The little I've been able to see when I appear, and when I last heard Cecil—I've been so worried, I thought something terrible might have happened, or was happening..."

 _Night Vale?_ Carlos wonders, but stops himself in time from asking it aloud. Instead he says, as confidently as he can manage, "No, nothing's wrong. Everything's fine. I'm just very busy with my work."

"Your science?" Dana sounds excited, as she glances around herself. "This is your lab, isn't it! I hadn't gotten a chance to see it in person—it's shinier than I expected; everything looks so very hard and polished.—Oh, is that a bloodstone? Are you doing science on the bloodstones, then?"

Carlos looks down at the stone he almost forgot he was holding. "You've heard of bloodstones?"

"Of course! I haven't been able to pray in a proper circle for a while, but I have this, at least," and from under her t-shirt she pulls out a necklace. The pendant dangling from the chain is an arrowhead of crimson-veined obsidian.

When her fingers brush it, his tablet chimes. Dana looks to the sound. "What's that?"

"That's my work—my current experiment." The woman doesn't seem either upset or concerned herself, so Carlos dares cross to his desk to pick up his tablet. "Did you say pray in a circle?" he asks. While he's not the most pious employee, he's of course familiar with the basic rituals to the smiling God; but he doesn't recall any involving prayer circles.

Dana nods. "My family's bloodstone circle. Hasn't Cecil shown you his by now? I know he can be such a traditionalist, but I didn't think he was Clandestine Orthodox..."

"I, um, suppose he hasn't had the chance," Carlos prevaricates, distracted by his tablet. The radiation signatures from the stones definitely rose when she touched her pendant. "That's a nice necklace," he says awkwardly. "Very pretty. Would you mind if I took a closer look?"

Dana readily grasps the arrowhead between her fingers to hold it up to his eyes. On cue, the tablet chimes again, as emissions from all three monitored stones jump slightly.

Moreover, the bloodstone in Carlos's hand feels warmer, even through the latex gloves—only slightly, but more than bodyheat. These radiation levels are too low to be dangerous; but they're definitely active, and possibly detectable...

"Did that do something?" Dana asks, craning her neck to look at his tablet.

She doesn't look guarded, only intrigued. "There appears to be a significant effect," Carlos says, tilting the screen in her direction. 

Dana peers curiously at the fluctuating numbers. "Is that good?"

"For this experiment, yes, it's very helpful."

"Oh, excellent!" Dana's smile grows, folding her cheeks until it crinkles the corners of her eyes—the effect is odd, but oddly pleasing. "I'm so glad I can be of help—after this long, to be able to be anything at all is wonderful! And I know how pleased Cecil will be, if I can help you with your science."

Carlos hesitates. But only for a moment. "If you want to help, Dana," he says, and his voice is almost even, "then please tell me everything you know about praying with bloodstones."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another shorter chapter, but I should have the next ready to go soon...

"Carlos? Carlos, are you asleep?"

_That's not right,_ Carlos thinks. The voice saying his name should be deeper, gentler. But then, the bed he's sleeping in feels equally wrong; it's too vertical, for one. And his pillow appears to be coated glass. His painfully stiff neck is the giveaway, when he tries to turn his head. He must have fallen asleep at the lab again. That's the third time this week; he's going to be trouble—or someone is, anyway..."You didn't break curfew to come here, did you?" Carlos mumbles. "I told you not to risk that again..."

"—Curfew? There's no curfew for employees at the workplace," comes the confused reply. "Besides, it's morning."

Carlos jerks his head up off his tablet and out of the nonsensical dream. For a split second he knows who he was talking to; but all memory of the dream is gone by the time he opens his eyes. He straightens from his slump over his desk, rubs his aching neck as he asks, "Fritz? What time is it?"

"Just past 0700," the junior geologist reports. "We tried calling but you didn't answer, so Nisa sent me down here."

Carlos peers down at his tablet, blinking gummy eyes to focus on the blinking alert box. "Sorry," he says. "I didn't hear it. The call." He gives his head a shake, as if he can physically cast off the haze muffling his thoughts. The dream is forgotten but leaves him disoriented; the lab around him feels strangely unfamiliar, for all he's spent more time here than his room in the corporate dorms. Like the opposite of deja vu: he's expecting a wooden desktop, though it's always been metal; expects sunlight streaming through open windows, though he's always had an interior room.

"That's why I'm here," Fritz says. "Nisa wanted me to remind you the presentation's this morning. In case you forgot or something."

That reminder wakes Carlos almost as effectively as one of the green pills. He fumbles frantically for his tablet.

If the previous night's events, the woman Dana's appearance, and his experiments after she vanished again, were no more than another dream... 

The security log he retrieved shows no presence in the lab last night beside himself. But his fingers are still bandaged. And the emission readings from the experiments remain, tables of numbers, plain and crucial. Carlos scans down them, then leans back in his chair, exhaling a relieved oath.

Fritz watches him, inquires, "How long were you napping? Have you had breakfast yet?"

"Breakfast?" Carlos shakes his head again. "Not yet—we've got the presentation in less than two hours, I need to get ready! Did you learn anything in your research last night?"

"Nope." Fritz shrugs. "Nisa and I came up blank; the whole night was a wash."

"Well, I may have something."

"Oh, really? Good for you."

The geologist sounds pleased, but casually so, hardly curious. Carlos looks at his fellow scientist. "Doesn't the uncertainty concern you? If we fail to demonstrate the desired results, we may all be not only removed from the ASAP, but transferred and retrained."

Fritz shrugs again. "We've done our best. Whatever happens, happens for the good of the company, right?"

Carlos rubs his temples. His head feels sore and fragile, from dozing on the desk, and without his usual sleeping aids to cushion the stimulant interruption. "You don't find it unfair? That we did proper science, but could be punished for honestly reporting our results?"

"Unfair?" Fritz frowns slightly. "Punished? Okay, you definitely need breakfast—you haven't had a dose since dinner, have you? This is just withdrawal talking. I was feeling it myself, by the end of the night—look, I couldn't stop biting them," and he holds his fingers up to Carlos's eyes, to show nails gnawed down to the quick. "But Psych, may God smile on them forever, took mercy on us."

"A booster dose?"

"A new prescription!" Fritz's blue eyes are nearly all black, his pupils are blown so wide. "Just for today. Anti-anxiety, maximum strength—I heard it's what they made for soldiers, for their first time on the battlefield."

Carlos frowns. He doesn't particularly keep up with medical research, but he has a vague memory of a relevant article. "Wasn't that drug discontinued after preliminary trials for being dangerously addictive?"

"Must have been an earlier formula," Fritz says. "The company wouldn't give it to us if it weren't safe, of course."

"Of course," Carlos echoes. "Well, I'll get my dose once I've set up for the presentation."

"Suit yourself," Fritz says with a shrug, slouching against the counter with his hands in his pockets.

Carlos really has no more cause for concern or anxiety himself, even without the dose. Whether or not the woman Dana exists outside of his imagination, he replicated the results enough last night to have a high probability of a successful demonstration. And once he's shown the executives how to activate the bloodstones, StrexCorp will be able to use his detector to locate them, wherever they might be hidden.

He picks up the nearest bloodstone, distracted by the play of light over its obsidian angles and red inclusions. The crimson looks deeper, more vibrant—the artificial lighting in the lab is unchanged, so either it's a change in the stone's properties, or a subjective effect of perception, now that he better knows its secrets.

He can't afford to do a full trial now, not when he doesn't know if there is a limit to how many times they can be activated. Dana had shown him how she prayed, but had disappeared again too quickly to answer to most of his questions, for all her eagerness to help.

He wonders if she would have been so willing, if she'd known what he would do with that knowledge.

Carlos shakes his head. Withdrawal indeed, to be bothering with such questions. Science is about accumulating knowledge; its source is ultimately irrelevant, as long as it is accurate. If one method fails to reveal a truth, another eventually will; what one scientist fails to discover, another inevitably will. The who and how are ultimately inconsequential. Endless, petty debates about ethics and credit are one of the reasons he left academia in favor of Strex's applied approach. He hardly has the time to be dwelling on such details now.

He should go to breakfast; food and his morning dose will help him focus. As soon as the demonstration is ready.

It's not a full trial, but he peels off his latex glove, runs his fingers over the bloodstone's surface. The obsidian is warm to his touch, and the nearest emission monitor's needle quivers, as its readout on the tablet cycles up a few digits.

"Hey, would you look at that," Fritz says, tapping the monitor. "Nifty."

"Latent activation," Carlos explains. "The actual effect is more pronounced. I may be able to teach you to replicate it." He glances at Fritz's glassy black gaze. "...Though perhaps not at present; I'll handle this demonstration."

"You're the boss," Fritz says, complacent.

Carlos studies him, considering. "Do you pray, Fritz?"

"Of course," Fritz says. "I go to the Recitation every morning."

"Yes, I've seen you there," Carlos says. "I know you've memorized all the chants. But as a scientist, have you ever found it...difficult? To reconcile faith with the burden of proof our discipline demands?"

"But our smiling God isn't about faith," Fritz says, sure as a priest. "Employees can be from any faith—my family was Jewish, myself. God's proof is in His works; and we're all His works, doing His work. So as long as we believe in ourselves, believe in our own perfection, we believe in God."

"What about those who don't? That is, those who aren't employees yet. Who hold other beliefs, have different prayers."

"Poor imperfect bastards," Fritz sighs. "Why would anyone want a god who isn't smiling? But we'll have positions for them eventually; in the end we'll all be hired!"

"One company, under one smiling God," Carlos murmurs. Fritz gives him a thumbs up, and helps load the bloodstones into a cart to bring up to the geology lab.

 

* * *

 

Giselle arrives at the geology lab precisely ten minutes before 0900. Carlos starts at her morning greeting. He's quite lost track of time, making sure the bloodstones and monitors are properly arranged. "Uh, good morning," he says hastily. "We're almost ready to go."

The supervisor marches over to him, extends her hands. Carlos flinches, but she's not holding her inspiration rod, but rather a blueberry muffin and a cup of coffee. "You haven't reported to the cafeteria or the morning recitation," she says.

"Yes, I meant to, but I had to get this ready—" The executives will be here too soon. And Fritz and Nisa have been of minimal assistance; while they haven't been interfering or asking many questions, they're slow to follow instructions, too busy assuring him that it will go fine and he'd do great.

"You have approximately seven minutes before the executives arrive," Giselle says. "Eat."

Carlos takes the muffin and the coffee. There are two pill sachets balanced on the cup's lid. One is the usual green pill; the other has a half-blue, half-pink capsule. The promised anti-anxiety dose; but he's not anxious now but energized, charged on scientific success.

He takes the green pill with his coffee, but when Giselle turns to greet Nisa and Fritz, Carlos pockets the sachet with the blue-and-pink capsule. Depending on how this presentation goes, he might have more need of it later.

The executives arrive as promised at three minutes to nine. They're proceeded by six security guards in blue uniforms; after the security has verified the geology lab, the executives file in. The first two are a man and a woman in conservative suits and thick-lensed glasses; Carlos doesn't recognize either.

The last to enter is Johnny Peterson, the marketing VP. He's also in a suit, rather than the jeans and shirt of the company mixer; but his smile is as broad, as he winks, says, "Good to see you again, Carlos."

"Um, yes, you too," Carlos says, nodding back, heat rising in his face. He resists asking why Marketing is interested in the bloodstone project. The company must have a way to profit off the stones. Perfect efficiency means finding a use for everything, even potentially hazardous resources.

The executives seat themselves as the geologists flank Carlos, a Greek chorus of white-coated scientists. They nod along as Carlos begins, "We were tasked with finding a reliable method of locating the bloodstones. After a series of experiments on the sample stones, we've determined baseline properties unique to these mineraloids, which—"

"Are we really going to waste any more time on this?" the unidentified male executive interrupts, speaking to his colleagues as if he hasn't noticed Carlos.

The female executive agrees, "We've read the reports; this project has been as big a failure as the rest. It's far past time to close it down." She snaps her fingers, and the uniformed security personnel step forward. "How does that sound to you? Are you ready to be reassigned?" This last is addressed to Carlos and the other two scientists.

"It sounds fine to me," Nisa says, Fritz next to her nodding agreeably. Their pupils are as luminously black as the bloodstones' obsidian. "Where should we report for retraining?"

"Um, excuse me?" Carlos appeals, fighting for composure. He should have taken the extra dose after all; his heart is pounding. "Director Aldis assigned us to exhibit activation of the bloodstones; may we complete the demonstration?"

All three executives look at him. "Are you saying you _can_ activate them?" the male executive demands.

Carlos swallows. "I believe so."

Johnny Peterson grins, handsome and confident. "What'd I tell you? Go ahead, Carlos."

"Ah—thank you." Carlos gestures at the counter, scrambling to recall his planned lecture. "As you can see, these thirteen sample stones have been arranged—"

"In a circle, yes," the female executive says impatiently. "We're aware of that superstition."

"What superstition?" Carlos asks. "There wasn't any mention of extant bloodstone traditions in the data we were given..."

"It was deemed irrelevant to the scientific investigation," the male executive says. "Proceed."

Carlos would ask for more irrelevant details, but he catches sight of Giselle glowering behind the executives, and recalls himself. Biting his tongue, he picks up the fourteenth stone, his original sample.

Some of the stones collected later were smoothed down—erosion, or possible polished in a tumbler, the geologists had speculated. But this stone is unworn, its corners gleaming sharp and black, outlined by the blood-red veins.

Carlos is not wearing gloves. When he runs his left ring finger down the most acute angle, the edge parts his skin as slickly as a whetted knife. It doesn't even hurt, though the cut is deeper than he intended; like all things, it takes practice. Half his fingertips are bandaged now, though the wounds should be too minor to scar.

"We already tested blood offerings," the female executive snaps. "They were ineffective."

"We tried them, too," Nisa remarks, idle and detached. "Along with every other advanced technological solution."

"Hemoglobin is only one of the required variables," Carlos says. He watches the single drop of red trickle down the curved conchoidal fractures, crossing the crimson inclusions.

When it's transversed three veins, Carlos murmurs, _"Madre de dios!"_

It's no prayer; but then Carlos is no Catholic, despite his abeula's best efforts. And the phrase holds sufficient—emotional significance? Vocal resonance? He hasn't yet determined the significant factor. But as he speaks, the blood sinks into the gleaming black surface, absorbed into the stone.

Carlos watches, waiting—hoping, willing, holding his breath.

Before he needs to let it go, every detector in the laboratory sounds. On the screen projected behind Carlos, the level lines of the monitors shoot up, as every stone in the circle emits in response to his counterfeit prayer.

"Oh my, would you look at that," Fritz says.

Giselle sits impassively, but the two unnamed executives jump to their feet, staring at the bloodstones. The lenses of their eyeglasses flicker with communication bursts. "God's teeth," the man curses. "You actually—son of a—"

"Impossible!" the woman exclaims. "It must be a hoax—"

"These readings, though," the man replies. His eyes are fixed on the bloodstones, avaricious, hungry. "They match what we've managed to record—"

Johnny Peterson is smirking, leaning back in his seat. "What'd I tell you?"

"But if they're really activated—if they're actively transmitting—!" the woman gasps, backing away. "Stop this at once!"

"Stop...what?" Carlos asks, confused.

The woman's eyes are also wild, but with fear more than greed. She gestures sharply, and the blue-uniformed security personnel move forward as a single unit. Carlos finds himself surrounded, a six-point circle with himself in its center, half a dozen tasers and tranq-stuns aimed in his direction.

He throws up his arms in surrender, the bloodstone still in his right fist, stammers, "I—I don't understand? The director gave me this assignment personally; I was under the impression that activation of the stones by any means necessary was—"

Johnny Peterson stands up, raising his hands. "Everyone, let's calm down—"

"How'd you come by these means?" demands the female executive over him. "None of your EOD reports implied you were even close to this!"

"I haven't filed this end-of-day report!" Carlos knows he's babbling, but it's difficult to stop himself, between the charge of caffeine and the morning's stimulant dose, and the adrenaline of the guards' threat. "I only had the breakthrough last night; technically that day has yet to end for me? But I can show it to you now—"

Everything next happens so fast that Carlos only later pieces together the sequence of events. He goes to reach for his tablet, but one of the security guards shouts a protest. Before Carlos can freeze, there is the click and crackle of a long-range taser firing.

But the electricity's arc fails to reach Carlos. Instead it sizzles against an invisible barrier, its energy discharging harmlessly into a sphere surrounding him, matching the diameter of the bloodstone circle.

The detectors shriek in warning, as all the radiation readings shoot up past yellow into the red. The stones themselves are glowing faintly crimson, their emissions increased to the visible spectrum; the stone in his hand goes from warm to hot.

"Stop it!" the lead guard hollers. "Put down the rock!"

Carlos, staring at the energy field around him, drops the heated stone in his hand. He hears it crack on the tile at his feet as he blurts, "Excuse me—I never intended—"

He doesn't get to finish. As soon as the stone hits the floor, the guards act. This time nothing stops the two taser bolts from hitting Carlos, whiting out everything in a flash of power and pain.


	6. Chapter 6

— _stinging shrapnel peppering his chest. He staggers back, collapses against the dirt wall. His lab coat is wet—so much blood—_

But no; Carlos's chest is dry, and there is hard metal against his back, not dirt. And the voices over him are not Russian but English, a muttered argument of which he only catches parts, not enough to make sense of:

"—don't fully comprehend the nature of the synchronicity; if any transmission made it through the jamming field—"

"—exactly my point; now that we've observed a full circle ritual we'll be able to—"

"—may be your pet project, but exposing him to potential mnemonic triggers is a hell of a risk. There are safer uses for him—"

Carlos tries to move, can't. His eyes and jaw are clenched in a spasm from the electricity's aftershocks. 

A cold hand stings against his cheek. He groans, forces his eyes open. Giselle is leaning over him. "He's awake," the supervisor announces.

"Carlos." Johnny Peterson's face moves into his field of vision, his smirk softened into a considerate smile. "Sorry about this...seems we had a _slight_ misunderstanding."

Behind the VP and the supervisor, Carlos sees the other two executives in their steel-rimmed glasses. The woman's arms are crossed; the man's hands are in his pockets.

They're in a different room, smaller, with solid white walls, not the lab's matte metal. Blue-uniformed security personnel stand beside the executives, watching expressionlessly; and there is another man in a white coat, not a scientist Carlos knows. His geologist colleagues aren't present, nor are the bloodstones and monitors.

The bloodstones—Carlos goes to rise, only to be stopped by padded straps around his wrists. When he turns his head, he feels the cold electrodes taped to his temples.

He seeks out Peterson with his eyes, asks urgently, "What's been done with the bloodstones? They may need to be shielded; those last emission readings were high enough that prolonged exposure might be hazardous—"

"Don't worry about that; they've been taken care of," Peterson says.

Of course, Strex was aware of the danger the bloodstones presented. Director Aldis had told Carlos so; he'd had no reason to doubt it. He should have taken more precautions.

"We do have a few questions about your demonstration, however," Peterson continues. "This," and he waves at the chair, the electrodes, "is nothing to be concerned about. Just answer honestly, and everything will be fine."

Of course, polygraph exams are a routine requirement of all of the company's employee contracts. Carlos has only had one at the Desert Bluffs facility, a brief routine quiz during his orientation. He had a more extensive battery when he first was hired, though his memory of it is as hazy as the rest of his initial employment.

Though he remembers enough to tense, forces through numb lips, "I'm happy to answer any questions you have."

"Great!" Peterson holds up his tablet. "We've been reviewing your unsubmitted EOD report. You state that during your experimenting last night, you happened to cut yourself on one of the bloodstones, employed invective at the injury, and consequently noticed the stones reacting?"

"Yes," Carlos says carefully, "that's what I wrote."

"And afterwards, you kept experimenting, until you figured out the particulars? That's how you discovered the technique to activate the bloodstones?"

Carlos breathes in, breathes out. Calms himself as much as he can before he answers, "Yes, once I observed the initial effect, I continued with experiments to refine the method." It's close enough to the truth—it might be the truth, if Dana is only a delusion, as Occam's razor would imply. A dream or hallucination, manifesting subconscious deductive reasoning, is the far more likely, far more believable hypothesis, than an invisible, transdimensional woman who happens to know his name, as well as how to activate bloodstones. "That's what happened." 

Carlos can feel the nervous sweat beading on his brow; but no honesty incentive is forthcoming. The electrodes against his skull remain quiescent. Instead, the man in the white coat checks a monitor, and nods to the executives. They frown back.

"See," Peterson tells his associates over his shoulder, "a fortunate coincidence, and good honest science, that's how he did it."

"Then why doesn't the lab's security footage support this?" the female executive says.

"Well, there was that glitch in the video," Peterson points out.

"And what caused that glitch?" the male executive says. He steps before Carlos, eyeglasses glinting, demands, "Did you deliberately modify or obstruct the observational equipment in your lab? Perhaps to conceal illicit activity?"

"No," Carlos says immediately. "I swear, I did nothing to any of the monitoring devices in my laboratory. And I didn't knowingly do anything else against company policy, either."

The man in the white coat checks his screen, nods again. The male executive sighs and steps back.

Peterson looks triumphant. "Just like I've been saying. We know the effects bloodstone activation can cause across the spectrum. Odds are that's what interfered with the video. All Carlos did was what he was instructed to do—and there's no way you can call that an unsuccessful demonstration. We should be _thanking_ him and his team, not interrogating them."

The other executives look unconvinced, their eyes narrowed suspiciously behind their flashing lenses. Carlos swallows, straightens as best he can against the chair's straps to say, "I realize that given my history, you have reason to doubt my ability—" and from their expressions, they know more details of that history than he does himself. "But the...issues during the demonstration were due to my own negligence; my colleagues had no part in that. Their work has been nothing but exemplary—"

"I'm sure it has been," Johnny Peterson says. "From what I've seen, all your work is commendable." He pats Carlos on the shoulder as he addresses his fellow executives. "Carlos here is a brilliant scientist and a loyal company man, just what Strex needs in a researcher. Only a fool would waste such a valuable resource. And Simons, O'Thomas, you aren't fools, last I checked. So what'll it be?"

The female executive looks cross, but the male executive just says, "Fine, then—as long as it's on _your_ head if this goes pear-shaped. Approved." He spins on his heel, marches out of the room.

"O'Thomas?" Peterson says, looking at the woman.

The executive levels a long, piercing look at Carlos, as if trying to see through his skull to observe the neurons of his brain. With the feeds in her glasses, it's possible she is. "Doctor," she says to him, and Carlos fights to maintain composure, to not squirm against the cuffs immobilizing him. Does she somehow know about Dana? Or does she merely guess that he hasn't been entirely forthcoming?

But O'Thomas simply asks, "Do you ever miss your previous job? The work you did before, where you were before?"

Carlos blinks. "You mean, the company facility was I assigned to, before Desert Bluffs?"

"No—where were you before you joined the Strex team?"

"Oh. New York, Columbia University," Carlos says. "I was an assistant professor when the company recruited me, two years ago."

The executive leans forward, close enough that he can see the blink of lights behind the lenses of her glasses. "And you never think about going back? Leaving Strex for what you did before?"

"No," Carlos says. "I'm satisfied by my work here."

She looks from him to the white-coated man, who nods confirmation. The executive scowls, then tells Peterson, grudgingly, "Approved."

She follows her colleague out the door as Peterson grins. The VP snaps his fingers to dismiss the security personnel, then tells Giselle, "Go release the other two, bring them here."

The supervisor nods and departs with the security team. At another gesture from the VP, the man in the white coat presses a button, releasing the straps around Carlos's wrists, and removes the electrodes from his temples.

Peterson gives Carlos a hand up. One of his legs has gone numb; the VP steadies him when he staggers, his hand warm on Carlos's arm. Carlos asks him, "What was approved? We're approved to continue work on the bloodstone project? Or approved for transfer?"

"Better!" Johnny Peterson grins, waves to the door, as Giselle ushers Nisa and Fritz inside. The geologists look unharmed and untroubled, amiably bemused by Carlos's concern.

"I've called you here to tell you together," the VP says, "we've reviewed this morning's demonstration, and have approved the results—the bloodstone tracking project is successfully completed!"

"Completed?" Nisa and Fritz break into cheers, high-fiving one another and Carlos. "Didn't we tell you it'd be fine?"

"Completed?" Carlos's mind goes blank for a second; his knees feel weak. This must be relief; or perhaps disbelief. "But the bloodstones require so much more research; I have theories as to how that effect—"

"The particulars don't matter," the VP says. "As long as we can find the rocks, that's what counts. Don't worry, we've got plenty more work for scientists of your caliber; you'll be assigned to new projects tomorrow. And you'll all be top of the list for the next ASAP project, I can assure you."

"Wow, that's great!" Fritz gleefully smacks Carlos on the back. "I thought this was over when the bloodstone broke, but you really knocked that demo out of the park, huh!"

"The bloodstone broke?" Carlos asks.

"Cracked right in two, when it hit the floor. I thought it was bleeding a bit, even—or maybe that was iron oxide residue—"

"Now, now," Peterson says, "that's old news; it's not your project anymore. I don't want to hear any more boring science talk, when you've got better things to be doing. Strex wants all of you to take pride in your accomplishments—here," and he takes out a sleek black card, stamped with, _For exclusive entertainment_ in gold block letters, and hands it to Carlos. "Have some fun, on us."

Fritz and Nisa both lean over Carlos's shoulders to get a look at the scrip-card, and whistle in harmony. "Now _that's_ what I call fun!"

"You'll be getting your bonuses next deposit," Peterson says, "but you deserve to celebrate now. In fact, take the rest of the day off!"

"A day off, seriously?" Fritz crows. "That's like having two restdays in one week!"

"Just our way of saying thank you for all your hard work," Peterson says. 

There are so many ways the company might have thanked them for their work; this, Carlos was not expecting. He folds his fingers around the card. "Thank you," he tells the VP. "For everything. I...very much appreciate your intervention."

"No problem," Peterson says. "It's all for the good of the company—you're an important asset to the Strex team, never doubt it. Though," he adds, his own voice dropping low and inviting, "I _have_ wondered if you've gotten any of my personal emails..."

"I have," Carlos says.

Peterson winks at him. "Then I look forward to hearing from you." He raises his voice, says heartily, "Now you guys go, enjoy yourselves! I don't want to see any of you back here until tomorrow morning."

Nisa and Fritz are happy to obey. "To Meyer's?" Fritz suggests, as they take Carlos by the hands.

"Frank's!" Nisa counters, and Fritz nods eagerly, as they tug Carlos out the door.

 

* * *

 

There are two bars in Desert Bluffs that the R&D scientists frequent. One is appropriate to bring executives.

Frank's is the other one. It's in a basement, the concrete walls unembellished, and its scrip-checker is crudely wired into an old manual cash register.

Carlos has only been once, his first week in town, dragged along with a crowd during orientation. He had no colleagues to invite him after that, and he hadn't thought to go himself. Frank's is the kind of establishment where shop-talk is discouraged in favor of louder socializing. And Carlos has never been much good at conversation outside of science.

Nisa and Fritz are hardly in the mood to care about that, though, or that the place has only just opened for lunch. When the woman behind the bar starts to explain that they aren't currently serving anything harder than beer, Nisa plucks the scrip-card from Carlos's fingers and slaps it down.

The woman gingerly picks up the black card, examines it. "Is this the real deal?"

"Scan it and see!" 

"We completed an ASAP project this morning," Carlos explains.

"Ah, I see. Congratulations!"

"Thanks!" Nisa says. "So give me a strawberry daiquiri—"

"—And a martini," Fritz chimes in, "shaken, not stirred!"

"—And whatever Carlos wants," Nisa finishes, slinging an arm over Carlos's shoulder. "Anything at all, _anything_ , you just ask, Kylie will take care of you. This is where I got the fast-track—did I tell you, Kylie? This is the guy I wanted it for—didn't exactly go as planned, but it worked out in the end. Like it always does!"

"You've got karaoke, right?" Fritz asks. "Let's fire that baby up, get this party started!"

The bartender sends a server over to turn on the machine, and a minute later the geologists are belting out company-licensed songs at the top of their lungs. "Looks like somebody got the good stuff," the bartender remarks as she prepares their drinks. "I take it you had a presentation?"

"This morning," Carlos says, trying to ignore how his stomach is twisting like a snake. The project is completed; he should be happy, triumphant, celebrating with his colleagues. He shouldn't be thinking about the bloodstones, or probably nonexistent women.

There's a clink as the bartender sets a shot glass down on the counter. "So what's your poison?" she asks. Then she leans forward, to murmur for Carlos's ears only, "Or would you rather just take your prescription?"

At Carlos's startled look, the woman raises her wrist to show her S-chip implant. "Don't be fooled by the decor; we're Strex-certified, and I've got full pharmocotherapy accreditation. Not everyone's comfortable going to Psych; some employees prefer a more casual setting. I haven't checked your schedule yet, but you're obviously on a different dose than your colleagues over there."

Carlos shifts on his stool. He'd all but forgotten about the sachet with the blue-and-pink capsule in his pocket; now its plastic corner is digging into his thigh. "I am—was the project lead," he says. "My prescription is different; and besides, this morning I had to prepare—"

"Hey, I'm accredited, but I'm not _your_ doctor," the bartender says. "If you want to risk disrupting your regimen, that's your business. I won't report you for underdosing—as long as you don't report my supplementary sales."

The woman's eyes remind him of the executives', as sharp and calculating. She may be a bartender, but she's not on a recreational regimen. Carlos meets her gaze, says, "What sales?"

The bartender nods, satisfied. "So what can I get for you?"

He's supposed to be relaxing. Until tomorrow, he has nothing to worry about, no work to concern him. Carlos looks over at his colleagues. The two geologists are laughing, carefree as children, sharing the microphone. They'd cheerfully welcome him, if he joined them. Singing in public isn't something he would do normally; but he doesn't have to be like that today. Carlos reaches into his pocket, his fingers finding the sachet with the capsule.

On the other hand, talking about mysterious appearing and disappearing women isn't something he would do normally, either. And the bartender might report it, or someone else at the bar, even if Nisa and Fritz don't.

Carlos takes the sachet in his pocket between his fingers and snaps it open, so the RFID chip will register it consumed. He leaves the capsule in the broken sachet in his pocket, however, taps the shot glass and tells the bartender, "Tequila, please."

Alcohol interacts oddly with the ASAP regimen. Carlos is too wired to become sleepy, doesn't get lightheaded. But he notices that time starts passing erratically; his colleagues begin and finish songs in the seeming blink of an eye, though when he tries to count the seconds they drag and stretch.

He knows it's a trick of perception, inebriation interfering with short-term memory; but there is something intriguing about the effect, something amusing and familiar. As if this is how time is supposed to work—supposed to not work.

Nisa and Fritz eventually, mercifully, tire of karaoke. By the time employees start trickling into the bar for after-work cocktails, the three scientists are crammed together in a booth with baskets of sauce-laden Strex-fries and more drinks. At first Fritz does most of the talking, about his plans for spending his bonus, where he's going to install the hot-tub.

But then somehow Carlos is telling his colleagues about where he lives himself, how he came to Desert Bluffs—"I was recruited by the company a couple of years ago, but I only applied for the transfer here a few months ago. I'd just recovered, and wanted a change of pace."

"Recovered from what?" Nisa asks around a mouthful of fries.

"There was an accident," Carlos says. His chronological uncertainty plays him false; by the time he remembers he doesn't like to talk about this, he's already answering. "At the facility I worked at prior to here. One of my experiments went wrong; I was caught in an explosion."

"Wow," Fritz says. "What experiment?"

"I don't know." Carlos shakes his head. His hand of its own volition rubs his chest; it doesn't really hurt, but he can feel the roughness of the scars under his shirt. "I have a degree of retrograde amnesia around the incident and the period before; my memory past my initial recruitment by Strex is uncertain. According to the doctors it's not an unusual consequence of such trauma; it's unlikely I'll ever recover those memories, and it may be psychologically damaging for me to try..."

_—"Tell us everything you remember—"_

_"I don't—" Cuffs biting into his wrists, electrodes sizzling against his temples—"I don't remember anything—I don't know what you're talking about—!"_

The flash is there in a heartbeat, gone the next. Carlos jerks up his hand as if struggling against unseen bonds; but nothing stops the motion. He wraps it around his glass instead, takes a drink and continues, "After the accident I was in a coma for almost a year, and in physical therapy for months following that. But thanks to the company's comprehensive care I regained full physical and mental function. And Desert Bluffs seemed to be the best place to put it all behind me, and return their generosity."

"Well, we're glad you came," Nisa says, leaning warmly again him.

"And we're glad for the company, for taking care of you, and all of us!" Fritz stands up, a little wobbly, to shout to the rest of the bar, "A round for everybody, on our illustrious employer!" He raises the black credit card in one hand, his glass in the other. "To ASAP projects, and StrexCorp!"

"To Strex!" Nisa and Carlos join in everyone's cheers.

 

* * *

 

It's still early enough for the last glimmer of twilight to still be glowing on the horizon, when they leave Frank's. But Nisa and Fritz are crashing hard. They tilt against one another, shoulders bumping as they stumble unevenly to the shuttle stop.

Carlos is steady on his feet, but his last dose was the green pill Giselle brought him this morning. His limbs are heavy, dragging with the lethargy he recognizes from restdays, the comedown from the work regimen. His head feels clear, but unfocused, bouncing from thought to thought. And his hands are sore, the cuts stinging under the bandages. The bloodstones are no longer his responsibility, but every pang reminds him of the project. The taser's electricity dispersed in a shimmering halo around him. Johnny Peterson's knowing smirk, and Dana's strange crinkle-eyed smile.

What had she asked him about? Night-something. Night Valley? Nightingale?

"What about Night Vale?" Fritz repeats, and Carlos realizes his skipping thoughts jumped to his tongue. Though neither of his colleagues are paying much attention. Nisa is drowsing, slumped on the bench; Fritz has his head tipped back to watch the stars.

It's a risk; but by the time Carlos realizes that, he's already taken it. "Night Vale, yes—I heard someone mention they were from Night Vale, but I wasn't sure where that was. Do you know?"

Fritz squints at him like Carlos's face is a vision chart. "Night Vale...I think Kevin's mentioned it on the radio. Isn't it one of the outer suburbs?"

"Was," Nisa yawns, not opening her eyes. "Wasn't it incorporated into Desert Bluffs a few months ago? ...Or it was supposed to be; maybe that fell through..."

Their shuttle arrives, and Carlos helps load his colleagues onto it. Once they're safely headed home, he sits and waits for his own. He takes out his tablet, but hesitates after he's typed in _Night_ , deletes it unsearched.

Instead he brings up a map of Desert Bluffs and the surrounding regions. He looks as far as Phoenix and Vegas and the California coast, but no matter how far he zooms in, there's no community labeled Night Vale anywhere that he can find.

His shuttle arrives. Back at the company dorm, Carlos gets himself an extra strong cup of tea, brings it up to his room. He takes off his shoes, and slips the triangle of paper out from under the insole as he lines them up by the door.

His bandaged fingers itch as he grips the stylus. On his secret list, below _NVCR? Mountain? Cecil?_ , he writes:

_Dana?_  
 _Night Vale?_

After a moment, he adds next to the _NVCR?_ \- _Night Vale C_? R_?_

Capital Revenue? Corporate Restructuring? Cognitive Recalibration?

Or nothing but nonsense flotsam from his own subconscious. He probably heard Night Vale mentioned on the radio shortly before he hallucinated. The rest of it is likely equally meaningless. He had a classmate in his undergrad years named Dana; or maybe that's from _The X-files_. 

And Cecil...he must have known someone named Cecil, somewhere...

He falls asleep, still dressed, rereading the list by the tablet's glow.

 

* * *

 

Carlos is drowning—sinking into bottomless depths, the water getting colder and darker around him—

—No, not water, earth; he's not sinking, but is being buried. Shovelfuls of dirt are thrown over him, his hair heavy with it, damp loam crumbling under his fingers.

Over him someone is shouting, protesting his interment. Carlos tries to tell him it's all right, that it's only proper, to bury the dead; but when he opens his mouth it fills with dirt, as heavy and bitter on his tongue as a pill. Above, the someone is crying, " _Can't—I can't—_ "

Then his cry becomes a shriek—no, a squeal—no, a beep—

Carlos opens his eyes. He's face-first on his pillow, blankets tangled around him, and the electronic tablet by his head is warbling. He gropes for the device, activates voice-only response. "Hello?"

 _"Hello, Carlos, this is Giselle."_ The supervisor's voice is tinnier than ever, coming from the tablet's speakers. Carlos starts to hear it here, in the comparative privacy of his own room.

The movement jars his skull painfully. He forgot to take his nighttime dose again; the hangover reminds him of the importance of following his regimen. "Yes?" Carlos says, rubbing his throbbing temples. "What's this about?" He hopes his voice is more level than it sounds in his head. It's early, by the clock, at least half an hour before the good-morning buzzer should go off.

His head isn't aching so badly that he can't imagine the worst. Did the executives retract their approval of the bloodstone project? Or is this about the capsule in its broken sachet, still in his pocket?

Or something else. His left fist is balled up, but he can feel the crinkling of paper between his fingers.

Giselle doesn't accuse him, however, just says, _"I have wonderful news!"_

"...You do?"

_"You've been named Employee of the Month!"_

"I have?"

 _"It must be due to your success on the ASAP project."_ Giselle sounds as excited as ever he's heard her; he can hear her corporately programmed smile in her voice. _"Meet me in the main building lobby; you'll be presented at the morning Teamwork & Efficiency Recitation, and then you'll have your interview."_

"My interview?"

 _"For the radio,"_ Giselle says. _"—Oh, here's Kevin now. I'll tell them you're on your way."_ She hangs up.

For a moment Carlos blinks dumbly at his blank tablet. Then he jumps out of bed and scrambles for the shower, only pausing long enough to hide his meaningless list back in his shoe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: a visit with everyone's favorite community radio host!
> 
> ...At least, everyone in Desert Bluff's...


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay in posting, but I've got some time in RL for ficcing again, plus I got a pre-reader/cheerleader (\o/ Naye!) so I'm hopefully back on track!
> 
> A note on canon: I knew this fic was doomed to be jossed when I started it, so yeah, consider it a canon AU. I am incorporating elements of current episode events as they fit, but a lot of details won't. Fortunately Night Vale has room for many multitudes of realities; I hope this one continues to entertain...
> 
> A second note on canon: AHHHHHHH THAT LAST EP OMG AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Carlos drinks his coffee and downs his morning dose on the shuttle. The dose is a regular yellow pill, not the ASAP regimen, and his head is still sore from the hangover when he arrives at the facility.

Giselle meets him in the lobby to escort him to a lounge outside the Recitation Hall. There a team of stylists hurriedly prep his face and do what they can with his buzz-cut, as they finagle him into a crisply pressed, bright yellow lab coat. Giselle oversees the process, checking the time and tapping her foot, metronome-precise.

Finally she takes Carlos's arm and hauls him up the stairs to the backstage. In the wings, she hisses in his ear, "Be sure to smile. Remember that this is an _honor_."

Carlos pulls his lips up and tight. Giselle nods critically, then pushes him on stage.

For a moment Carlos is blinded by the spotlights. But though he usually Recites remotely from his lab, he's personally attended enough Recitations to know what he should do. He makes his way stage-right, to the golden circle of a Beneficial Employee. Once standing within it, he keeps the smile fixed on his face as the opening Teamwork chant begins, adding his voice to the chorus of researchers and office workers filling the hall, _"We are many in one; we think as one, act as one, pray as one, sin as one—"_

His vision adjusts as he chants. Johnny Peterson isn't present, but the male and female executive from yesterday stand to Carlos's right, in different suits but the same glasses. Before them, in the center of the stage, is today's Recitation Focal Point, a woman in a suit jacket with dramatic shoulder-pads, and metal gauntlets reaching up past her elbows. She leads the Recitation, now raising her gauntleted hands and her voice in the Efficiency mantra, echoed by the rest of the hall.

Carlos barely registers any of them, however. He speaks the recitation by rote, all his attention fixed on the man on the other side of the stage.

He is a stranger to Carlos, and there is nothing obviously distinctive about him. He's not markedly short or tall, or under- or over-weight. He's dressed in an ordinary shirt and tie, spattered with the residue of high-tech invocations; and while he's certainly not ugly, his features don't meet the same standards of attractiveness as Johnny Peterson's square-jawed masculinity.

So there is no obvious explanation for the feeling Carlos has, looking at him. A certainty as convincing as déjà vu, as undeniable as touching a live wire. His palms are sweating; his heart beats too fast in his ears.

Carlos has never believed in romantic clichés. So it must be pheromones, or social conditioning, or the excitement of participating in the Recitation, that this man catches his eye across the stage and smiles, and some part of Carlos falls in love instantly.

It leaves him standing baffled and distracted, as the woman with the gauntlets finishes the chant and calls for silence. Carlos knows to stay in his place in the circle, as the day's Disappointment is presented, a slump-shouldered man led by a gray-faced supervisor to the center of the stage.

The spotlight above the man changes to red as the woman with the gauntlets reads off the supervisor's report. The unnamed employee was found to have uploaded unapproved software onto his company-owned tablet, and utilized this software while at the workplace. "For shame," the executive says, her voice ringing across the silent auditorium, "not only did you threaten the security of the corporate network, but you betrayed your coworkers. They had to work all the harder to make up for your unforgivable lapses in productivity. Moreover, they were implicitly rejected in the very software you were spurning them for—there is no 'team' in Solitaire!"

The Disappointment doesn't answer. He stands mute and unprotesting as those onstage line up before him. Carlos joins the line as the executive in the gauntlets steps forward. She raises her metal-clothed hand to slap the disgraced employee across the face. His head jerks back, a crimson line scored across his cheek by one of her steel fingertips.

The other executives and the man's supervisor each take their turn, delivering their blows with professional precision. Then Carlos is standing before the man. The red spotlight glows sullenly on his swelling cheeks as he gazes blankly at a point meters behind Carlos. Drool leaks from one corner of his slack mouth. Obviously his retraining has already begun; this punishment is not for his benefit, but as a reminder to the other employees of their duty.

Carlos's own duty here is straightforward, though his hand feels strangely heavy, difficult to lift. He cannot bear to look into those vacant eyes. Instead his own gaze shifts, falls on the mysterious stranger on the other side of the stage.

His eyes are lost in shadows, but he tilts his head toward Carlos, offers an encouraging nod.

There is something overwhelmingly familiar in the gesture. In all of this, standing on stage before an audience, feeling a roomful of eyes upon him. Carlos feels like he should be saying something now, addressing all those watching, explaining— _just what is going on here—_

He recalls himself. Pulls up his heavy hand and slaps the man under the red spotlight, lightly, perfunctory; but it's sufficient for him to retreat back to the golden circle.

The disappointing employee is led away. The woman in the gauntlets returns to the forefront of the stage for another speech. This time she names Carlos, and praises rather than condemns, lauding his project's success, and how the company values his contributions. "We are so pleased to say he has been selected as StrexCorp Synernist Inc's Employee of the Month!"

Carlos comes forward to be presented with the orange triangle badge marking his accomplishment. He obediently tips his head so the executive can press the badge against his neck. There is no perceptible prick, only a brief sensation of cold, like an icecube pressed to his skin, as its fasteners implant in his dermis, fixing the badge in place over his pulse-point. 

Once it's in place, the executive shakes his hand. In proximity, Carlos can see that the gauntlets are actually prosthetic limbs, the finger joints as delicate as clockwork. They clink as she starts to clap them together, leading the applause. The others on stage and the audience join in.

Then the Recitation is over. Carlos leaves the stage, one hand to his throat, feeling the cool metal triangle of the badge, almost flush to his skin. He looks for Giselle, but before the supervisor reaches him, the man in the spattered shirt and tie is there, extending his hand. "Congratulations, Carlos—and may I say, so glad to finally meet you!"

The man's voice is familiar as his face is not; Carlos has heard it on the radio enough to recognize it immediately. His pounding heart skips, settles into a marginally more regular rhythm as he accepts the handshake, mumbling a reflexive, "Thank you, Kevin. Great—uh, nice to meet you, too...?"

Kevin beams and pumps his hand, unaffected by Carlos's distraction or damp palms. He's likely used to it; he is something of a celebrity around the city. "I've heard _so_ much about you," the radio host continues. "And to be able to speak to you in the course of my job, what a wonderful day this is! Even more than usual."

"You've...heard about me?" Carlos repeats, more confused than ever. "What have you heard? I'm just a researcher..."

"One of the company's best!" Kevin exclaims. In person his enthusiasm is even more vivid than on the radio. "And so much more besides. You do cut quite the figure in that lab coat; it's _immaculate_. The hair...well, it looks very practical."

"...My hair?" Carlos says. "It is practical, yes...and the lab coat isn't my usual, it was just for today's ceremony..."

"Oh, you don't mind if I record this little chat, do you?" Kevin asks, holding up a microphone. It's wrapped in plastic, moist and sleekly modern under the transparent folds. "I'm sorry we can't have you over to the station in person for a live interview, but it's impossible to get a visitor's pass, after that incident..."

"Recording now is fine," Carlos says. "Um, what incident was that?"

Kevin blinks, then lightly smacks his forehead. "How silly of me, of course you wouldn't...it was a few months ago. Before you started working here, I do believe? The extra security since has been a bit of a bother—but safety first! Enough about the little complications of the radio business; we're here to talk about you. Tell me, Carlos, on a scale of one to ten, how excited are you to have been chosen as Employee of the Month?"

Carlos stumbles through answers to a few innocuous questions, blathering modest, mindless platitudes. Kevin is friendly and consummately professional. The smile audible in his voice matches the one on his lips; but his face itself is not as fitted to that voice, somehow.

Or maybe it's just that Carlos never considered what the man on the radio might look like. It's not that he couldn't have imagined Kevin looking like this; his appearance is suitable for a radio host. But somehow when Kevin's mouth moves, the wrong voice emerges, like watching a dubbed movie.

If he ignores the voice, however...Carlos watches those lips shape the syllables of his name, and wants, abruptly and desperately, to kiss them.

He wrenches his gaze up to Kevin's eyes, stares into that abyssal darkness as he wills down the unexpected heat rising in his cheeks. Could his morning dose have been swapped with a restday prescription? But the pill had been the usual yellow. And this impulse is different from that heady drugged lust.

"—Carlos?" Kevin says, his voice strangely flat in Carlos's ears, though he's still smiling. "Is anything the matter?"

"I-I'm sorry," Carlos stammers. "I was just—thinking. It's what scientists do."

"Of course!" Kevin says. "Thinking is your job, so of course you must always be doing it. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me; my listeners will appreciate hearing from an employee as accomplished as you. Why, I've heard that they're already getting returns on your latest discovery—in only twenty-four hours! The details of that project are confidential, but I hear that it's _such_ impressive work. You're an amazing scientist; StrexCorp is very lucky to have you on our team."

"I'm lucky to be here," Carlos says, an automatic courtesy, but Kevin's smile widens.

"On behalf of StrexCorp," the radio host says, "let me tell you how happy I am—how happy we all are, that you chose to work for us, of all the opportunities you must have had. While we can't talk specifics, I'd like to ask, do you find the work you do for us interesting, as a scientist?"

"Oh, yes, definitely," Carlos says.

"The _most_ interesting, would you say?" Kevin asks, putting his hand on Carlos's arm.

It's a casual gesture, more sociable than suggestive, but Carlos's mouth goes dry from that simple, inexplicable warmth. "Um, the most...?"

"How interesting _is_ it, to work here at StrexCorp, Carlos?" Kevin asks, holding up his microphone.

Carlos gulps, ducks his head to lean into the microphone, shining wetly under the plastic wrapping. "It's—it's very interesting. I can honestly say, StrexCorp is the most interesting place I've ever worked."

Kevin beams, bobbing his head. "So glad to hear it! I hope you don't get bored—that you'll stay here with us for a long, long time."

Carlos's gaze returns to Kevin's face, like a compass needle pulled back north. He's excruciatingly conscious of Kevin's hand, still resting on his arm. "I'm not—I mean, I don't. I don't have plans to go anywhere. I hope you don't either. —I mean—um—that you—"

Kevin just chuckles. "Of course I don't! I can't imagine anywhere I could go that would be as wonderful as Desert Bluffs, can you?"

"Um, I suppose not..."

"Kevin!" A young man in a blue t-shirt comes running up to the radio host, pointing to his tablet. "It's getting late, we have to leave now, if we're going to make it in time for you to open the broadcast over in—"

"Yes, thank you, Linus," Kevin says. He lifts his hand from Carlos's arm, lowers the microphone. "I'm afraid we need to wrap this up."

"Oh," Carlos says, trying not to glare at the newcomer who interrupted. "Yes, sorry, of course..."

Then he looks at the young man more closely—specifically, at his t-shirt. It's blue instead of red, and the yellow-sun logo is different; but the letters below... "DBCR?" Carlos reads off.

"Desert Bluffs Community Radio," Kevin explains. "Linus here is one of the lucky youngsters to make it into our station internship program. Where he's been doing a wonderful job—really excellent, Linus, if I haven't told you so."

"You have, but thank you again, sir," Linus says.

Kevin thanks Carlos again for his time, once more congratulates him on the honor and shakes his hand. Carlos's palm is dryer but he holds on for too long, not wanting to let go. With something like desperation he blurts out, "I could give you my number? In case you're, uh, reporting on some important science-related matter?"

Kevin blinks. "The station has several scientific consultants already."

"—Oh right. Yes. Naturally."

Kevin cocks his head, smiling at Carlos. "Here," he says, and hands Carlos a business card stamped with the station's logo. "Feel free to call in if anything especially interesting comes up that you're allowed to talk about. We're always happy to hear from listeners. Especially listeners as _significant_ as yourself."

Carlos knows he's reading too much into the gaze Kevin casts over him, construing deep meaning in simple politeness. He feels his cheeks heat anyway, can't hear the nonsense he mumbles as a farewell over the pulse thumping in his ears.

He doesn't snap out of it until Kevin has vanished out the door, and Giselle is calling his name. The supervisor hurries him to the elevator, glowering at him as they ascend.

"Don't believe you've got any special dispensation, just because you'll be on the radio, and have that triangle," she says, jerking her chin at Carlos's neck, the triangle affixed to his skin. It's warmed to his body temperature; he can only feel it if he presses his fingers down on it, so the corners dig into his flesh. "As Employee of the Month, you'll be expected to set an example for everyone for the next thirty days."

"I understand," Carlos says. He's never met an Employee of the Month himself. Now that he has a moment to think about it, it's almost unreal, that he should have been selected. He wonders what he did to deserve it.

His laboratory is mostly as he left it, except that all the equipment he requisitioned for the bloodstone project has been removed. The security cameras have also been replaced with newer models, larger and more complex.

There's no one there when they arrive. "Where's my team?" Carlos asks. "Up in the other lab?"

"You have no other lab anymore, nor any team," Giselle says. "Your temporary access to other facilities has expired, and your new assignment is individual. The details are on your tablet."

Of course; Carlos doesn't know why he would have thought otherwise. The bloodstone project was a special case; he's not a geologist, and has no reason to work with them on unrelated research. Though he can't help asking, "Do you happen to know what assignments my colleagues—former colleagues—have now? They did excellent work; I hope it was acknowledged—"

"That's not your concern," Giselle says, and leaves him to his new assignment.

 

* * *

 

While not ASAP, the new project is complex, a multi-level analysis of factors ranging from atmospheric pressure and continental weather patterns to local neutrino counts. Carlos immerses himself in the data and doesn't resurface until his tablet chimes a lunchtime reminder.

He looks for Nisa and Fritz in the cafeteria, but doesn't see them, or anyone else he knows. He eats at a table alone. No one joins him in any of the adjacent seats, and he ignores the murmurs around him, the eyes focusing on the triangle badge on his neck. 

Off the ASAP regimen, there's no lunchtime dose. Back in his lab, he nearly nods off over the figures, his eyelids heavy and his thoughts sluggish. He gets more coffee, drinks it black. An Employee of the Month can't afford to slack off.

He nearly chokes on the coffee when Kevin's cheerful voice come onto the radio. " _Good afternoon, Desert Bluffs! I'm sorry I missed spending the morning with you, but I had a little business elsewhere—not anywhere to speak of, nowhere as wonderful as our little burg. But now I'm back with you, and oh, I have a treat for you today—but first, the community calendar—"_

Usually Carlos doesn't pay much attention to the radio, but today he is hyper-aware, and not because he'll be on it. Kevin sounds the same as ever, but somehow it's different, to envision him saying the words. Carlos's very blood feels as if it's flowing faster and hotter in his veins, picturing those lips—

He shakes his head at his own absurdity. Crushing on a local celebrity? Ridiculous; he's no teenager—hasn't been one for so long that he can't recall if it actually felt like this. He knows nothing about the man; Kevin talks daily on the radio, but rarely about himself. He's nothing to Carlos but a familiar voice and a reasonably, but not atypically, attractive face.

—A face which Carlos can remember in perfect, eidetic detail, for all his usual trouble matching a name to an individual. But he's sure he could pick Kevin out of a lineup of a thousand men, as easily as a radioactive isotope can be distinguished from stable atoms. He knows those extraordinarily ordinary features like he studied them, like he took seminars and ran experiments and wrote papers on them.

He's jarred from his preoccupation by his own uneven voice coming over the radio. Kevin edited the interview to some pithy sound bites appropriate to an Employee of the Month, praising Strex and Desert Bluffs. But Carlos flushes to hear his nervous mumbling, in such embarrassing contrast to Kevin's poise. He hopes most employees will be too busy to listen, is grateful when the recording is finally replaced by soothing weather.

On the shuttle ride home, Carlos sinks down in his seat and pops his collar to hide the triangle on his neck. While some of his fellow workers' faces are familiar, none know him well enough to know his name, or identify him as the Employee of the Month stammering on the radio.

He makes it back to the dormitory in time for Kevin's sign-off. As he listens he takes out the business card the host gave him, runs his fingers over the embossed _DBCR_.

Assuring his back is to the room's security features, Carlos slips his secret list out of its hiding place, unfolds it. Reads the first entry: _NVCR?_ \- _Night Vale C_? R_?_

Night Vale Community Radio?

He goes to the room's radio, built into the wall as they all are. Though it's automatically tuned to the local community radio, it has a selection of other preset stations. Carlos goes through them one by one. There's soft rock that StrexCorp has purchased the rights to, contemporary hits from StrexCorp's subsidiary producers, classical music StrexCorp is attempting to secure. One station has a woman reading off presumably Strex-approved numbers, interspersed with chimes. Another has a monotone hum, changing pitch every fourteen seconds.

Several stations are only static, white noise uninterrupted by any signal.

There are no other voices talking on the airwaves. Maybe if he could tune to the bandwidths in between—but the steel panel over the radio tuner is bolted down, inaccessible. 

Or else he's too far away to pick up NVCR. Or maybe the R isn't for Radio; or maybe NVCR doesn't exist anymore. (If it ever existed.)

Despite this, Carlos stays up late into the night, flipping between hissing static. He's not sure what he's listening for, but he strains to hear it all the same.


	8. Chapter 8

_"The early bird catches the worm—so better for the worm to remain underground, than risk forgoing its duties to watch a frivolous sunrise. Welcome to Desert Bluffs!"_

Kevin sounds as brightly cheerful as always this morning. Carlos can't lower the sound fast enough.

The facility radios receive only one station, but for the last three days he's turned down the volume on Kevin's broadcasts as low as it will go. And for the last three days, it's been reset to normal levels when he comes in the next morning. He doesn't bother changing it until Kevin comes on.

Carlos returns to his quantitative bivariate analysis of agricultural yields, only to be interrupted by a priority alert on his tablet. He has a new appointment scheduled at Psych.

Since he's off the ASAP project, it's been over a week since he had his last check-in with Dr. Tithoes. The psychiatrist's office looks dimmer, though the desert sun outside the tinted windows shines as hot as ever. Deprived the energy of the ASAP stimulant regimen, Carlos doesn't pace as he has before, just sinks down in the chair opposite Dr. Tithoes's desk and waits.

"So, Carlos," the doctor asks as he reviews his notes, "how are you doing?"

"Well enough," Carlos says. "I finished the ASAP and was assigned a new project."

"I heard," the psychiatrist says. "And you were designated Employee of the Month as well—congratulations, that's quite the honor." He's a professional; he very nearly sounds as if he means it. Though he swallows as his gaze falls on the orange triangle on Carlos's neck, hastily skips back up to meet Carlos's eyes.

"Thank you," Carlos says by rote, and waits for the doctor to regain his composure.

Dr. Tithoes asks a few more friendly questions, before tapping his tablet and leaning back in his chair, fingers steepled before his yellow tie. "I noticed," he remarks, "that you've been adjusting the radio in your laboratory?"

"Yes," Carlos confirms; there's little point to denying it. "Is that a problem?"

"Your listening choices are your own, of course," the psychiatrist says. "But you do understand, don't you, that the radio is more than simply background noise—that shared media experience helps hold our little community together."

"I'm still listening to the Recitation every morning," Carlos says.

Dr. Tithoes nods. "Yes, but you've been turning down Kevin's show."

"It's distracting," Carlos says. At the psychiatrist's raised eyebrow, he clarifies, "My current project involves complex statistical analysis; I find it difficult to concentrate on the numbers with verbal language in the background."

It's the truth. A percentage of the truth. Carlos knows better than to admit it to the doctor, but he's been struggling with this current project, to focus on abstract statistics, after the visceral thrill of discovery with the bloodstones.

And Kevin's presence, however remote, makes it impossible, when Carlos can't stop thinking about the radio host, after meeting him in person. Can't stop imagining the mobile lips that speak those words, the steady hands folded around the microphone...

"I see," Dr. Tithoes says, taking a note on his tablet. "And here at Strex we naturally allow employees to arrange their workspaces to maximize personal efficiency. But what about on your downtime? You could be catching up then, but you've also been changing stations on your radio at home."

"I...have," Carlos admits. Somehow in the last few days, it's become habit, when he arrives back at the company dorm, to go to the radio and cycle through the stations. He never hears anything unexpected. Never hears anything as...stimulating, as Kevin's show. As Kevin. But still, every night, Carlos tunes to each station in turn, listening for...

"Kevin is the voice of Desert Bluffs," Dr. Tithoes says. "He keeps all of us on track, in synch and informed. You wouldn't want to miss important bulletins, would you?"

"No," Carlos says, "I just...I've been looking for something soothing to relax me in the evenings. Since I was taken off the ASAP regimen, I haven't been feeling very well-rested."

"Insomnia?" Dr. Tithoes asks. "I can increase your nightly prescription."

"No, I've been sleeping; just...not well. I've been waking feeling unrested. Unsettled."

The psychiatrist sits up straighter, though his tone remains casual. "Have you been having bad dreams, Carlos?"

"No—no, I don't remember," Carlos says.

He's lying. But he's not in the polygraph chamber now; Dr. Tithoes only nods and takes another note.

It would be easy to tell the doctor about the dreams; Carlos isn't sure himself why he's unwilling to discuss them.

They're different every night, yet the same, too. Sometimes he's being buried, sometimes he's drowning. Sometimes he's trapped, locked behind a heavy door or iron bars, in manacles or a straitjacket. Sometimes it's dark, or else he's blindfolded, so he can't see his circumstances at all.

But there is always a radio. Carlos can never see it, but he can hear it—muffled by dirt or thick walls or water, but he can always hear voices through hissing static. Sometimes more than one person, arguing; or else just one, shouting or crying. The words are too muffled to make out, but sometimes the voices have a familiar timbre. Not Kevin, not anyone he knows in Desert Bluffs. But he can almost, almost recognize them. If he can just find the radio, raise the volume so he can hear clearly whoever is speaking... 

He spends every night searching, but he never finds it before the wake-up buzzer.

He sleeps through the night, through the dreams, but it's not enough. He's still re-acclimating to the standard non-ASAP regimen; it's difficult to work without the focus, the clarity of the stimulants. He muddles through his workdays, feeling like his mind is still half-buried, half-drowned, thoughts that should be swift weighed down and waterlogged.

Dr. Tithoes doubles his nighttime prescription and recommends he start a dream journal on his tablet. He reminds Carlos again of the importance of keeping up with Kevin's broadcasts, and schedules a follow-up session the next week.

When Carlos returns to his lab, the radio's volume has been restored to normal levels. To show he's trying, Carlos doesn't adjust it. And that evening when he gets back to his room, he automatically goes to the radio, but stops himself as he reaches for the control panel.

Instead of changing the station, he turns up the volume, sits and listens to Kevin's sign-off.

There are two blue pills in his evening sachet, as if he's on an ASAP regimen again. Carlos hesitates, then swallows one, stashes the other in his desk drawer. He doesn't need more sleep, but to be more awake. Dreams or no dreams.

 

* * *

 

The next restday, Carlos sleeps in, and dreams he's in a cave, a maze of twisting, dark tunnels. He wanders through the labyrinth, trying to follow the faint voices he can only just hear. The rocky walls are dank, slick with moisture as he trails his fingers along them. The floor is moving, heaving under his feet in a steady rhythm, as hot winds blow over him, ruffling his hair, wayward strands falling in his eyes.

Then another voice drowns out the first, loud and clear and jovial, _"—hope you all are up by now—you wouldn't want to waste another second of this wonderful restday, would you? There's so much to do—so much to buy, so much to consume! Anyone who is not out of bed by now should really see a doctor—or just wait, and Strex Medical will make a housecall. Best to get you all cured up now, so you don't risk losing a precious workday to some silly pneumonia—"_

Carlos wakes with a start and hastily scrambles out of bed, before a team from Medical can be summoned by his room's monitor. He's lucky he isn't changing the station anymore; Dr. Tithoes is right, that it's best to listen to Kevin's broadcasts. At least when it's not in danger of disrupting his work.

He turns up the radio to listen to Kevin's broadcast as he showers, and for once doesn't try to stop himself from picturing the mouth shaping those helpful words.

 

* * *

 

At work Carlos continues to keep the radio's volume low, reducing Kevin's voice to a subliminal hum, a mild distraction. A welcome distraction, when Carlos tires of figuratively banging his head against statistics. It would help if he understood what Strex wanted, what correlations he could prove that would best serve their interests. The figures he's been given to analyze are so diverse and arbitrary that he almost wonders if he's being assigned busy-work, something needlessly to occupy his time and mind...

But no, an Employee of the Month shouldn't think like this. He must trust the company; the principles of corporate efficiency and profit are more reliable than any individual person. He wouldn't be paid for this work if it weren't contributing to Strex's interests somehow. Everything they all do is in service to the smiling god, Carlos reminds himself. Not being divine himself, he may not be able to comprehend the plan; but he can have faith that it exists.

That should be enough. Carlos doesn't know why it isn't. Why he finds it so hard to focus on his scatter-plot matrices and distributive functions, even when Kevin isn't broadcasting. This is pure science, theory such as he thought he had to give up when he left academia. He should be grateful for such work; but it feels empty, meaningless.

If it were an ASAP project...even if the work itself weren't so stimulating as the bloodstone project, on that regimen he surely would have completed this task by now. Even one extra dose a day, to dispel the monotonous lethargy of late afternoon.

Today is especially tiresome, the latest set of numbers obstinately inexplicable. Supposedly it's seismic activity records, but none of it makes any sense—massive earthquakes with no detectable epicenters, that fail to register mere kilometers away. The data, or its contradictions, rings a faint bell...perhaps a paper he read back in grad school? He recalls a few speculative phrases about imperceptible earthquakes; but though he searches Strex's vast databases, he can't find the article in question.

That frustration isn't enough to stopper his yawns. In an effort to keep his eyes open he turns up the radio, but even with Kevin murmuring in his ears, Carlos's head starts nodding over his tablet—

"Carlos?"

The voice snaps him awake, but it's not Kevin on the radio. For a split second Carlos thinks it's one of the people he hears in his dreams—but he's awake now.

Or else he's dreaming after all, because when he turns he sees Dana standing in his laboratory.

She's wearing the same red shirt and kerchief, but she's not smiling; her eyes are wide and she's wringing her hands. "Carlos—you are here! Thank the powers!" she cries when she sees him. "Oh, I've been trying to find my way back for so long, but I haven't been able—either I wasn't doing it properly, or something was stopping me. This is only the second time I've made it back to Night Vale, since I saw you last. And the other time was only for a moment, but long enough—long enough to see—oh, it was terrible, it was so awful, to see what's happening!—Or has happened, or will happen, I suppose—do you know, Carlos, if it's happened yet, right now?"

"If it—if what, now...?" Carlos asks.

Dana takes a deep breath, lets it go. "I must stay calm—I must be professional! I don't know when I'm here; maybe it's soon enough. Or else it's already over! I can hope for that. I saw them taking bloodstones, Carlos. I saw them break into Leann Hart's house and drag her out the door, kicking and shouting and waving her axe—and then they took her bloodstones from their hidden circle, piled them in a yellow wheelbarrow as if they were just rocks from a garden. They saw me, and tried to capture me; but when they reached for me their hands passed through me, as if I were no more present than a fleeting thought.

"Then I turned my head and I was back on the mountain, and try as I might I couldn't get back to Night Vale, until just now. I've been walking and walking around the lighthouse, until I found my way back here—oh, Carlos, in the when you're in right now, has this happened yet? That must have been why you were researching them, to protect them. Have they started taking the bloodstones?"

"I—I don't know," Carlos stutters.

Dana frowns in confusion. "How can you not—"

Before she can say anything more, the laboratory door snaps open, and a security detail rushes inside, armed and in full protective gear.

They surround Carlos, sweeping the lab with their weapons, as if searching for an intruder. But none of them appear to notice Dana. One of the men even steps right through her, and she shudders; but the guard doesn't react.

"Carlos?" Dana says, sounding frightened—at the very least, concerned.

"What's going on here? What are you doing?" the security team leader demands, looming over Carlos.

"What do you mean?" Carlos asks, his mouth dry. He ducks behind his desk, though it won't protect him from the weapon in the guard's gloved hands. It's not a taser; Carlos doesn't know what it is, other than dangerous. "What's this about?"

"There was an interruption in the observation feeds from this lab," the guard says.

"Carlos, what's going on?" Dana asks. "These people—these blue uniforms—they look like the same people I saw taking Leann Hart, and her bloodstones. Have they captured you, too? What about Cecil, is he—"

Carlos doesn't glance at her, no more than any of the others present do; instead he keeps his gaze fixed on the security guard's opaque faceplate. "I swear to you, I didn't do anything to interfere with the feeds. Take me to the polygraph, if you don't believe me. Maybe it's an equipment malfunction?"

The guard's weapon remains leveled at him, but he doesn't pull the trigger. "And you didn't notice anything else unusual?"

"No," Carlos says, as steadily and straightforward as he can.

The security guard stands over Carlos a moment longer, then steps back. "All right, Doc, we'll send up a maintenance team to examine the equipment. Contact us immediately if you do notice anything amiss—a blown fuse, a nonworking outlet, anything."

"Understood," Carlos says.

"And sorry for the interruption," the guard says. "Good luck with your science, may you have a productive day."

"You, too," Carlos says, as the security team files out of the lab, doing a final sweep as they depart.

Leaving Dana, standing where she appeared between the counters, staring at Carlos. "You—you're working with them," she says. "You're working _for_ them—why? How? After everything, how could you—how could you do this to Cecil?"

 _Do what_? Carlos wants to ask. _To who?_

He wants to ask so much; but the last of the security people are still in the lab. Even if the cameras are still off-line, it might be overheard.

He tries to reach out, to gesture for Dana to stay, at least a little longer; but she closes her eyes, turns her face away from him—turns her existence itself away, vanishing without another word.

 

* * *

 

Maybe he's going insane. Carlos can't decide, however much he turns over the facts in his mind.

The physical evidence—or utter lack thereof—suggests Dana is a hallucination, a waking dream. Stress-induced, perhaps, since he's back on an ordinary regimen now; if he were going to have such extreme reactions, they would have developed earlier.

But something impeded the lab's camera feeds, causing bizarre skips and gaps in the digital record, more noticeable now, with the more sensitive equipment just installed. The maintenance team finds nothing, and when Carlos reviews the recordings himself he finds no power spikes or electromagnetic noise, no obvious causes. 

He wonders about the new equipment, why his statistical analyses would need such close observation. He wonders, too, about how quickly the security team arrived. As if they had been on standby on this floor, waiting for—what? What did they know? Or suspect he was doing, beyond his assignment? 

Carlos expects a summons, to the Ward, or the polygraph room, or up to the executive offices. But none comes.

Maybe he is losing his mind, because as one day passes, and then another, without any summons, he finds himself more disappointed than relieved. An interrogation would give him more information; he might deduce something from the questions asked. He has nothing to go on now. Even the most brilliant scientist is helpless without any data to work with.

He tells himself that's what drives him—the need for answers, for explanations. Proper motivation for any scientist. Or else it's a matter of efficiency, of solving such distractions, so he can devote himself to his work, as befits an Employee of the Month.

It must be that. And not the painful, mournful, unfathomable betrayal in Dana's eyes, as she turned from him.

He tries calling for her, when he's alone in his lab, his back to the camera and under his breath so as not to be picked up by the microphones. " _Dana_ ," he whispers to the empty room, "are you here? I don't understand; I don't know what I might have done. I was just researching rocks; how could that have harmed anyone? Can you tell me? Can you tell me who you are? Why do you think you know me? Dana, are you there?"

But if Dana hears him—if Dana really exists, to hear him at all—then she doesn't reappear, or respond.

 

* * *

 

Carlos hasn't heard from Johnny Peterson since the bloodstone demonstration. The marketing director might be out of town on business; or else not interested in Carlos anymore.

Carlos gives it a try anyway, replying to the last email he got from Peterson, dated over a week before, to accept the invitation to lunch. He gets back a confirmation within five minutes.

They meet the next afternoon at Frank's, at Carlos's request. Peterson is amiable as ever. He doesn't comment on the cheap bar, but vigorously shakes Carlos's hand, thanks him for accepting the invitation and congratulates him on the orange Employee of the Month badge on his neck.

And if the handshake lingers, if there is something possessively familiar in the hand Peterson puts on the small of Carlos's back as they walk into the bar, it's not exactly uncomfortable.

Though as Carlos takes a seat across from the executive, he finds himself looking at the man's face, seeking in vain the attraction he felt before. He remembers the dizzying ardor they shared at the party, but while he can see the interest in Peterson's dilated eyes, in the touch of his tongue to his lips, Carlos doesn't feel an answering pull in himself.

Peterson is still attractive, highly desirable, physically and socially; Carlos can calculate his objective appeal across multiple variables. And yet their sum is insufficient. Not enough to make Carlos's blood heat and pound in his ears.

It's been a nearly week since he met Kevin, and just the memory of the radio host's face has more impact on Carlos than the material presence of the man he's with now.

Carlos tries not to let it show, tries to seem like he's merely embarrassed, shy around the executive's status. Maybe he doesn't want Peterson anymore; but he still needs him. So he calls on all his awkward years as a teenage geek, averts his eyes, drops his head, mumbles into his water glass.

He might fool the executive, or maybe he's just being humored. Either way, Peterson smiles at him with amused pleasure as he asks about Carlos's current project. 

Carlos discusses his current analysis as they wait for their sandwiches, finishing, "So it's going well enough. Though I admit, I thought that as an Employee of the Month, I might get assigned something really important..."

"All work is important work," Peterson says. "Work itself is important!"

"Yes, I know, of course." Carlos traces a finger around the rim of his water glass, delaying, cautious in his confession. "It's just, I found the bloodstone project more...stimulating."

Peterson doesn't blink, just says, "They can't all be ASAP projects. And it can be difficult, to go from a project—and a regimen—so significant, to a more ordinary assignment."

"Yes—yes, exactly." The waitress arrives. Carlos pauses while she sets down their plates, takes a gulp of ice water to wet his dry mouth. This is delicate—dangerous, if the executive decides to report him. But Peterson has seemed friendly before. And Peterson also offered him a dose outside his prescription, the first time they met. Even an executive has to get his supply somewhere... "I want to do my best, ASAP project or not. This current assignment deserves my best, don't you think?"

Peterson leans back in the booth, tapping his fingers on the table beside his plate. "Your best, hmm?" He glances over at the bar, at the woman tending it, his face calm, unreadable. "I see. Though, if you really want onto another ASAP project, there is a way..."

"Oh?"

The executive picks up his sandwich, meeting Carlos's eyes before he takes a bite. "Do you happen to know of anything worthy of being ASAP? Something you might've run across in your recent work, perhaps, or before on the bloodstone project, that we should be paying more attention to, putting more resources into investigating?"

Carlos hesitates.

_I know of an invisible woman who apparently can teleport. Who can see and hear those who cannot see or hear her, and who cannot be physically contacted even if she is perceived. Who knows about bloodstones. Who knows about Night Vale..._

"No," he says. "I don't know of anything like that."

Peterson shrugs. "Too bad. In that case, you'll have to be patient. And," his eyes shift, briefly, significantly to the bartender, then back to Carlos, "do the best you can."

"All right," Carlos says. "I will.

"Hey, relax. It's okay, there's no shame in knowing one's limits. Or how to get over them." Peterson reaches under the table to put his hand on Carlos's knee, warm and heavy. "If you do think of anything, anything at all, that might be worth an ASAP, let me know. And if anything new comes up, I'll see what I can do. It's your Month; be a shame to waste it, right?"

There is a subtle emphasis to his inflection, to the grip of his fingers through Carlos's khakis. It's an invitation, and not one Carlos can carelessly refuse. So he doesn't move his knee away, instead says, "Maybe we could have lunch again in a few days? If you're in town."

Johnny Peterson smiles, squeezes Carlos's knee. "It would be my pleasure! Let's make it a date."

They finish eating. Peterson is an executive; there's no bill, just a polite thank you from the waitress. Peterson checks his watch, says, "I need to be getting back; how about you have a coffee before you go? Get your afternoon off to a good start, so you can finish off the day productively."

He winks. Carlos nods acceptance of this implicit permission, and Peterson heads out with a wave and a promise to see him again soon.

The woman who comes to pour Carlos's coffee isn't the waitress, but the bartender—the same woman who served him and his colleagues before, Nisa's acquaintance Kylie. She nods at Carlos, asks, "So what can I get you, Carlos?"

"That depends," Carlos says. "How much is this worth?" and he takes a small Strex-lock baggie from his pocket, sets it on the table between his hands, so only the bartender can see it. It holds half a dozen sky-blue pills, half the week's doses that he's been skipping.

The bartender counts them with one evaluating glance. "That'll get you a few doses," she says. "Two for one, if you're looking for go-go.—Green stims, the standard dose," she clarifies, at Carlos's confused look. "One more day of ASAP for you."

One more day might be enough to finish the factor analysis, clear his schedule for a real project—but that's not why he came here. Carlos shakes his head. "Not that."

Kylie's eyes narrows. "What do you want, then?"

"Discretion," Carlos says. "This request can't make it into any report. Or get mentioned to any other company employees." Johnny Peterson will cover for him, on the assumption Carlos is merely picking up a few extra ASAP doses, against Psych's protocols. But that won't help if Kylie bribes any of her executive business partners with information about him. 

The bartender studies him curiously, then shrugs. "What the hell; it'll hardly matter anyway, at the end of the month. I'll keep it to myself." She hesitates, then tips her chin at the orange triangle set on his neck. "Though I'll tell you now, if it's about that, there's nothing I can do. You're on your own there. Sorry."

Carlos fights the urge to put his hand over the badge. In the past week he's gotten better at tucking his collar to make it less visible, but it still garners him looks whenever it's noticed. He wishes his hair were long enough to cover it. Now he leaves it alone, just shakes his head. "It's not about that."

Kylie nods with fleeting relief. Carlos slips the rest of his payment out of his pocket, puts it on top of the bag.

The bartender stares at the blue and pink capsule inside its cracked sachet. "Is that—"

"Anti-anxiety, maximum strength," Carlos says. "I never took it. It's worth more than the sedatives, isn't it?"

"Just a bit, yeah." The bartender reaches for the sachet, but Carlos puts his hand over it. Kylie withdraws her own. "So what do you want for it?"

Carlos glances around the bar. No one appears to be paying attention, or is close enough to overhear if they are. "A radio."

"Huh?" The bartender leans closer, as if doubting her hearing. "A what?"

"A radio," Carlos repeats. "A personal-sized model. And analogue, not digital. The age or condition doesn't matter, as long as it works and has a dial."

"Why do you want a—"

"Why do you want an anti-anxiety dose?" Carlos says quickly, before his nerve is lost.

The bartender rocks back on her heels, eyes Carlos with what might be a modicum of respect. "That's it? A piece of obsolete tech, for that capsule?"

"That's it."

Kylie considers, then nods. "Deal. Come back in two days with the dose, and you'll get your radio."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it Sunday yet? Why isn't it Sunday yet?!
> 
> But here's an extra long chapter, to make up for time's cruel failure to bring the next episode to us...

In the next two days, nothing happens that is worth calling Kevin about. Not that Carlos was expecting anything to happen, or hoping for it. But it's a fact that nothing does.

Dana doesn't reappear before him. His statistical analysis proceeds at pace, with no significant or interesting revelations to be had. Carlos does make one discovery: there are advantages to assignments that don't garner the close attention paid to ASAP projects. Such as no comments from any supervisors when his End-of-Day report only has four completed analyses, when he could have managed eight.

Leaving Carlos with the free time for other pursuits. Nothing as risky as illicit downloads or frivolous entertainment. Anyone observing the security feeds will see him studying at his tablet; the logs will show records of retrieved articles related to his project data.

It doesn't take him long to set up the automatic proxy searches to run concurrent with his encrypted browsing, the technological equivalent of reading a comic hidden behind a text book. It's limited; he doesn't dare enter anything that could raise a flag and bring greater scrutiny upon his local network. Searching for "Night Vale" is too risky. But he can enact certain protocols, and access Strex's less secure databases without leaving a trace.

Such as the personnel roster for the R&D facility. He finds both Nisa and Fritz. The geologists are assigned to different labs, but still in the building. Still R&D personnel, to Carlos's relief; neither have been retrained.

Their specific assignments are classified, but that lack of knowledge is explanation in itself; most projects don't have such security. 

Nisa's current lab is more than a dozen stories above Carlos's own; it would be difficult to manufacture an excuse to get up there. But Fritz is working only two floors down. Carlos takes a late lunch, eats quickly and leaves the cafeteria by the stairwell, which unlike the elevators doesn't read his S-chip.

Fritz is an exemplary employee; he follows a precise schedule to maximize efficiency. His afternoon restroom break is always between 1400 and 1430, when traffic is minimal, so there is no wait time.

Carlos occupies one of the stalls, and only has to wait six minutes for the geologist to enter the restroom, alone. He exits to meet his former colleague at the sinks, and doesn't even have to offer a greeting; when Fritz spots him he says, "Hey, Carlos! How's it going?"

"Can't complain," Carlos says.

"Of course not—against company policy, right?" Fritz grins, though Carlos doesn't miss how the other scientist glances at his neck, to the orange triangle over his carotid artery.

Before Fritz can comment or apologize, Carlos says, "What about you? Are you finding the next phase of bloodstone project as satisfying?"

Fritz looks at him directly in surprise. "You know about that? I thought you were taken off it."

"I was taken off that aspect of the research," Carlos says, and lets Fritz draw his own erroneous conclusions about what other aspect Carlos might have assigned to. He continues, "Sorry that you haven't been having more luck on your end."

It's a calculated gamble, based on depth of shadows beneath Fritz's eyes, the hollowness of his cheeks attesting to late-night efforts. The gamble pays off; Fritz sighs, shaking his head as he gives his hands a diligent scrub. "Tell me about it! I thought finding the damn stones was hard enough; who knew getting rid of them would be even more difficult?"

"Getting—" Carlos catches himself only just in time. "Getting rid of them—yes, disposal is a difficult assignment. Though I'm sure you're up to the challenge."

"Wish I had your confidence. Oh well, if we can't come up with anything more cost effective than full radioactive containment, the company'll just dump the whole lot on the bottom of ocean and be done with them," Fritz says, flicking water from his fingers. "So are you working with Nisa, refining the location techniques? She hasn't mentioned you..."

"No, I'm on an, um, independent study," Carlos says. "The long-term analysis—but I won't bore you with the details; I'm sure you've seen them already. I hope some of it proves helpful."

Fritz spins on his heel to face Carlos. "Some of what? You have new data on the bloodstones?"

"Not much—nothing beyond what you'd have seen in my EOD reports—"

"I haven't seen any new analyses," Fritz says. "I didn't know anyone else was working on the stones except for my team and Nisa's."

"Odd," Carlos says, keeping his tone offhand with effort. "I'd have thought a few of my results would be applicable. But there must be a reason my research hasn't been passed on."

"Yeah, must be," Fritz says. "The smiling God works in mysterious ways..." But he looks more discontent than pious.

"Well, it was good to run into you, Fritz. I'll see you around, perhaps," Carlos says, turning to leave.

He walks slowly, but he's still almost to the restroom door before Fritz says, "Carlos, wait."

Carlos stops, turns back.

Fritz fidgets, looking up at the ceiling. "Obviously you can't break protocol and share confidential data, but...relating personal anecdotes can help build cooperative spirit among employees. So maybe, if you wouldn't mind, you could have a drink with me and Nisa sometime, chat about our...comparative experiences with the bloodstones?"

Carlos pretends to consider, though not for very long. "I was thinking of going to Frank's this evening, after work; I could meet you there?"

"Sounds great!" Fritz says, and Carlos nods and leaves before anyone else enters. Or before the open relief in the geologist's face makes him reconsider.

 

* * *

 

Carlos feels even guiltier that evening. Nisa is so openly glad to see him; when she says she misses working with him, it sounds like she regrets losing more than the perks of an ASAP project. And Carlos knows how she feels; he doesn't have to remind himself to return her smile. They only worked together for a couple of weeks, but it felt so right to have co-workers, colleagues he could rely on.

Using them now feels wrong, and knowing that they're hoping in turn to use him doesn't assuage his conscience. He knows what they want from him, and came willingly; but they don't know what he really wants. And he doesn't dare tell them. Fritz trusted him enough to make this request, but Carlos can't return that trust. Not yet, not when he knows so little that he can barely trust himself with it.

They get a pitcher of dark ale from a local brewery recently bought out, and sit at a private booth in the corner. "So, Carlos," Nisa says, once they've exchanged niceties, "Fritz says that you're on an independent project now, analyzing the bloodstones?"

"An analysis of a number of disparate factors," Carlos says. "And frankly, I'm not sure if anything I've learned will be of much help to your work..." Such careful honesty tastes more bitter than the beer on his tongue, but he presses on, "I'd have a better idea what's relevant if I knew more about how your own projects are going. Nisa, you're still on tracking and location—have you observed any of the bloodstones being acquired?"

"No," Nisa says, but she looks away, her practiced smile hitching. "I haven't been allowed to join any of the acquisitions teams. The site where they're being collected is heavily restricted. Very dangerous, we're told. Though I have handled a few sets of stones immediately after collection."

"Hey, yeah," Fritz says, "you mentioned you dealt with some activated stones..."

As it turns out, for all their ongoing research, neither Nisa nor Fritz can give Carlos much more information about the bloodstones—not what he wants to know. Not what he needs to know about their acquisition, about how Strex may have sent a security team to take bloodstones from someone's home.

The stones are powerful, that he proved himself. But are they really dangerous enough to warrant such measures? To justify the fear and despair he saw in Dana's eyes?

Or else imagined in Dana's imaginary eyes...

In return for what little Nisa and Fritz tell him, Carlos talks about activating the bloodstones. He avoids mention of how he learned how to do it, but describes the experience, scientifically. It's the first time they've been in a capable state of mind to discuss it, and Carlos privately admits that the conversation is as much for himself as for them. As geologists, they don't have the context to understand the finer points of his hypotheses about the radiative flow and field interactions; but they have valuable insights about the crystalline structures within the bloodstones.

It's not until Fritz says, "Carlos, man, thanks so much for this, it's a big help," that Carlos realizes he might have said too much. He's not overly worried about the confidentiality, when he's off the project, and is an Employee of the Month besides. And of course he doesn't want his former colleagues to fail in their assignments.

But what could happen if they succeed? If Dana were real—if her fear was real...

He covers by pouring the last of the beer, and Fritz doesn't notice his reticence, declaring the next round on him as he jumps up from the booth. But Nisa is watching Carlos, her habitual smile at a thoughtful slant. Once Fritz is out of earshot, she remarks, "Your current assignment doesn't have anything to do with bloodstones, does it?"

"What?" Carlos sputters into his beer.

"I asked some friends about you, after you got that," Nisa says, nodding at his Employee of the Month badge. "Last I heard, you were doing stats. Maybe that's just rumor, and you're really researching something top-secret—but whatever it is, it's not the bloodstones, whatever Fritz thinks. If it were, you'd have some new information, not just talking about what we researched before. But for some reason the executives don't want you on that project anymore."

Carlos doesn't know what to say. Nisa doesn't look angry or disappointed, only curious. "Why? If they're not your assignment, why do you want to know about the bloodstones?"

_Because an insubstantial woman who only I can see told me that something terrible is happening, somewhere I've never heard of that doesn't seem to exist, and it may be my fault. And I don't know who she is and don't remember ever meeting her, but somehow I trust her more than anyone I know here..._

"Scientific curiosity," Carlos says, with a self-deprecating shrug. "After the work I did on that project, it's...frustrating, to not know the results of my research."

Nisa's smile slips away entirely. She says, "Take it from an old hand, you're better off not knowing. The company tells us what we need to know to do our jobs. Anything more is...inefficient."

"How so? We're scientists; isn't it best for us to have as much knowledge as possible?"

"That depends on the knowledge." Nisa gulps the last of her beer, stares down into the empty glass. "The bloodstones Fritz mentioned, that were acquired while activated? Some of them still had traces of their activation...only to be expected, and I've worked with vital fluid technology.

"But the other traces...one set came in a box. A wooden box, beautifully hand-carved, and every stone had a molded seating, like a violin case. The velvet was worn, and the wood had that warm look, that smoothness of wood that's been handled thousands of times, polished by human touch. It had been treated so gently, so respectfully, that box—only it was cracked, a fresh crack, breaking open the lid. And one corner was charred—part of the carving had been burned off, as if to erase what was inscribed there. A name, I think...the name of whoever owned that box, owned those stones. Whoever it was who wouldn't open the box, so it had to be broken open.

"I'm a geologist, and I've been studying the bloodstones for months now, Carlos; but I don't have any idea what they actually are or why StrexCorp wants them so badly. I know better than to ask; I have a family, and this is a good job. A great job, the best job I could have! But knowing this—I wonder. Scientific curiosity, like you said..."

Before Carlos can reply, Fritz returns, with a fresh pitcher and several co-workers in tow. It's late enough that the bar is filling up with off-duty scientists. Fritz's friends declare that shoptalk is forbidden, as per the rules of the establishment, and demand reparations from Carlos and Nisa.

Carlos good-naturedly orders a round for the whole bar on his scrip tab; it doesn't put a dent in his ASAP bonus. But though he toasts the company with the others, he doesn't do more than sip his drink. He has work tomorrow, and no extra pills to negate a hangover; and he has other business besides.

Rather than crowd back into the booth, he takes a seat at the far end of the bar. He doesn't have to wait long before the bartender Kylie makes her way over. "Did you bring it?" she asks, nonchalant under the noise.

Carlos reaches into his pocket, checking for the broken sachet, and nods. "Did you—?"

Kylie extends her hand toward him, palm up and empty. "ID."

"What?"

"Need to check your ID, if you're going to order alcohol, sir."

"But I've already—um—sorry, yes," Carlos says, and holds out his hand for her to scan the S-chip in his wrist.

As she moves the bulky old-style scanner over it, she places something into his hand. A palm-sized rectangle, small but solid. Carlos pulls it back into his lap under the counter, glances down at his prize.

"It's battery-operated," Kylie says, "with an analogue dial and a wired headset. Old-school, like you wanted."

"Thank you," Carlos says, running his fingers over the molded plastic.

"You're welcome," the bartender says, "but it isn't your birthday, and that wasn't a present."

Carlos nods, takes out the sachet with the blue-and-pink pill and sets it on the bar under a napkin. Kylie slides a shot across to him and sweeps up the napkin in a single motion, pockets it with a wink. "Pleasure doing business with you, Carlos; come back any time." She glances at his neck, adds, "In the next month." 

She turns to serve another patron, as Carlos tucks the radio away into his jacket pocket, safely out of sight.

 

* * *

 

Carlos doesn't take out the radio in the bar or on the shuttle ride back to the company dorm. Once in his room, he tosses his jacket and the radio in its pocket onto the bed, and goes to brush his teeth.

Before he turns out the lights, he snaps the sachet with his nightly dose, but palms the pills without taking them. He also gets a tube of lotion from the drawer by the sink, and gets into bed with it and his tablet, pulls the blankets up over his head. Feeling like a boy secretly reading under the covers after his bedtime, he activates the tablet, opens a playlist of company-endorsed pornography.

Then, by the screen's glow, he examines the radio.

It's bulky for its size, no longer than his palm but thicker than his tablet, but small enough to conceal in a looser pocket. Its silver plastic case is scratched and chipped, and the paint has rubbed off the logo stamped into the plastic. It's not a StrexCorp symbol, nor any of its subsidiaries. Carlos knows he's seen it before, but doesn't remember where, and can't keep the name in his head when he's not looking at the logo, thanks to Strex subliminal advertising campaigns. The company doubtless has been put out of business by now anyway, so it hardly matters.

Carlos takes the radio apart before turning it on, opens the battery slot and pries apart the plastic case. The circuit-board is old-fashioned as promised, solder and transistors, no fluid technology or magnetic neuro-aligners. There's no Strex tech, except for the uranium batteries, which should give a year or more of continuous play.

He snaps it back together, then plugs in the wired headset, slips one of the earbuds into his ear and turns it on.

At first he only hears a static hiss. Slowly he tunes the dial, climbing through the frequencies until a concerto comes into focus, playing softly in his ear.

He finds the music and the numbers and the tones, same as plays over the radio in the wall. The rest is only static, the same static he's heard every night before.

He listens for an hour anyway, dialing from broadcast to broadcast, before finally switching off the radio, taking half his nightly dose and going to sleep.

 

* * *

 

The next day Carlos has lunch with Johnny Peterson. Peterson takes him in the elevator up to an executive lounge on the building's roof. It's more café than corporate, with delicate filigree tables arranged on a marble patio, and figures in tailored black and white and featureless golden masks serve sandwiches and lemonade. The servers are courteously silent, even their footsteps muffled, so the only sounds are conversation and the wind, and the ubiquitous radio, playing over speakers set between the patio's tiles.

Overhead, a giant mirrored array provides shade from the harsh sun, a focusing apparatus for a laser, from what Carlos can see of the array's mechanism. Peterson doesn't mention that, but as they eat he points out the various sites of Desert Bluffs spread out beneath them. The East, West, North, and South malls, with eight hundred acres of asphalt parking lots between them; the helicopter launching pad, where the city hall once stood; the radio station, its steel tower thrusting up between the surrounding buildings like a spear stabbed through a fallen warrior. And beyond the city limits, the mesa drops off, descending into the empty desert wilderness. But Strex owns nearly everything in sight by now, Peterson assures, and eventually even that wasteland will be paved over and built up into something useful.

Carlos tries to appear appropriately impressed, though he's preoccupied. Seeing the radio tower reminds him of the radio, now back in his company quarters. He tried it again this morning before leaving for work, but didn't pick up anything new. Now he thinks he ought to have taken it with him anyway. Even its simple circuitry might be picked up in a random sweep, should there be a contraband search of the dorm. And the radio isn't StrexCorp technology; if it's discovered...

"Hey, Carlos, what's up? You look like you're a million miles away," Peterson remarks.

Carlos realizes that a mute waiter is standing at his elbow, displaying a tray of desserts for his selection. Peterson already has his choice before him. "No, ah, only a few thousand miles," Carlos says, following the executive's lead and picking the tiramisu. "I'm sorry; I was in the middle of a predictive model of tectonic plate movement when I left for lunch, and I'm afraid it's still on my mind..."

"Don't apologize," Peterson says. "Your devotion to your work is one of your most attractive qualities—one of many, needless to say," and he smiles, slow and seductive.

Carlos blinks and drops his eyes to his dish, feigning coyness, even as he wonders which employee handbook has the instructions for Peterson's expression. "I've been told that I could be a little more devoted to people and a little less devoted to science."

"Happy heavens, I hope it wasn't anyone here saying something so unproductive!" Peterson exclaims. 

"No, not here."

"Glad to hear it; I wouldn't think anybody at Strex would be that backwards. We know how to appreciate the value of a good day's work. I just wish we hired you sooner, so you never had to put up with such baloney."

"Yes, well, it was a while ago..." Carlos frowns at his dessert, trying to recall how long that while was. _I understand what you're doing is important—I'm very into science, you know!—but this is important, too, isn't it...?_

He remembers the words, but not who said them. An old girlfriend? Or one of his journalist friends from college? It must be a long time, that he can't even bring a name to mind, or recall the rest of the conversation.

He's started from his thoughts by Kevin's voice, as the radio over the speakers changes from an undulating hum to the host announcing, " _That was today's Productivity Drone, brought to us by StrexCorp's own Mental Regulation Chorus. If you'd like to put your own vocal cords to the company's use, try-outs will be this coming Wednesday. Just in case you've forgotten, signing up is compulsory for any employees with perfect pitch—you lucky devils! I only wish I had another voice, so I could contribute it twice..."_

"He's on the air already?" Carlos remarks without thinking. For the last week Kevin's show has started late; this is the first time Carlos has heard him before noon.

"Kevin?" Peterson asks. "Yeah, he's had some business elsewhere, but hopefully that'll work out and we'll have him back here full-time before long."

"Good—um, I mean, that's good. For the company."

The executive shoots him a look over his dessert, and Carlos feels his cheeks warm with that inexplicable, unavoidable heat. He hopes his complexion conceals the blush, as he blathers, "Kevin—Kevin's show—is a valuable asset. Scientifically speaking. He's skilled at vocal expression, and fostering a sense of community. When I met him..."

Peterson—does not visibly tense or straighten; but something about the way he inclines his head, just a single degree, makes Carlos trail off. The radio is quiet as well, a pause for commercial contemplation. Into the silence Peterson says, with a painstakingly relaxed inflection, "Oh, you've met Kevin before? I didn't know you've ever been to the radio station."

"I haven't; he came here to the facility to interview me," Carlos says. "Last week, when I was made Employee of the Month."

"Right, the interview," Peterson says easily. Only the slightest change to the set of his shoulders, an incremental loosening, betrays that there was ever any tension there. "Such a...delightful fellow, isn't he?"

"You know him?" Carlos asks, before he can help himself.

"Pretty well," Peterson says. "We've worked a few projects together; we're on one right now, as a matter of fact."

"Oh?" Carlos says. "I, um, don't suppose you need any scientific consultation on this project...?"

"Are you fishing for an ASAP or an autograph?" Peterson asks, and chuckles when Carlos twitches. "So it's like that, is it? I didn't realize I had a rival."

"It's not—I don't—" Carlos almost reaches for Peterson's hand, aborts the motion halfway through—this is an executive lounge, would that be unprofessional conduct? Or should he try for a bigger gesture, a kiss, a confession—before Peterson realizes his disinterest, and is offended by it—

"Carlos, relax." Peterson is still smiling, differently from before but as provocative. "I'm not jealous. Truth be told I'm relieved."

"—Relieved?" Carlos wonders if he's the one who should be offended. "Why?"

"I know we haven't known each other long, and this," he motions between them, "isn't that serious—but I've come to care about you. And lately you've seemed somewhat unfocused. I was concerned, and Dr. Tithoes was as well, that you might be unhappy here—feeling out of place, not adjusting to life in our little community. But this—infatuated with the Voice of Desert Bluffs himself, you couldn't be more local if you were born here!"

"I'm not...it's just...he's an interesting individual," Carlos weakly protests, poking his tiramisu with his fork.

Johnny Peterson's smile is slipping into a smirk. "That he is. Though I admit, I didn't think a radio host would be your type. Have you ever gone out with a media personality before?"

"Never," Carlos says. Peterson nods, peculiarly satisfied by this confession, as Carlos continues, "My previous relationships have been with classmates or, uh," he glances at Peterson, "co-workers. Other scientists, usually." And all of them women—not that he hadn't been attracted to men on occasion, but it had never been mutual, or at least not mutual enough for any of them to let Carlos know. Peterson is the first man to have openly expressed interest in Carlos; otherwise, Carlos had always been too logical to waste time pining for what couldn't be.

Kevin...Kevin is completely illogical. He doesn't even know if the host has any same-sex inclinations; and even if he does, why would he spare a second thought for an ordinary scientist, among all the important people he knows...

...And why is Carlos thinking about this? His only real relationship with Kevin is listening to him over the radio; he has no expectations or hopes of it extending beyond that. He knows full well that the business card was just a courtesy, not even a personal number. Besides, what could he possibly say to Kevin, even if he did call—there is no rational reason for Carlos to duck his head at just the thought of it.

Peterson doesn't appear bothered by Carlos's absurd preoccupation. "Kevin is the exception to many a man's rule. And as far as I know he's not seeing anyone at the moment; I could put in a good word for you with him?"

"Uh, no—thank you, but I wouldn't—"

"What are you waiting for?" Peterson says. "My advice is go for it! There's something you want—so take it for yourself. That's what an executive does."

Carlos almost drops his fork into the dessert, shock blasting all thoughts of Kevin from his head. "—An executive? But I'm not—"

"Not yet," Peterson says, casually as ever. "But until we perfect the cloning process, executives are made, not born...and I think you might have what it takes." He reaches across the table to touch Carlos's neck—just one finger, brushing the Employee of the Month triangle affixed there. "Besides, what do you have to lose?"

They finish lunch with hardly another word. Peterson seems unsurprised that Carlos is stunned into speechlessness. The executive shakes his hand in the elevator, clasping it warmly in both of his, but the gesture is more friendly than intimate, and Peterson doesn't invite Carlos to another lunch. He does say, "Good work—and good luck," with a suggestive wink implying that he's talking about more than Carlos's current project.

Back in his lab, even Kevin's voice on the radio can't focus Carlos's whirling thoughts. Naturally he'd considered promotions, calculated his prospects for advancement, at least until this month—but he'd never dared look so high. Executives are made, not born...

He doesn't make much progress on his project; but at least he's not fretting about the radio. And the device is still hidden, safely undiscovered, when Carlos gets back to the dorm that night.

Disconcerted as he is, he takes his full dose tonight, swallows both sky-blue pills before getting into bed. Under the covers, he slips the radio's earbuds into his ears, and scans through the frequencies, static to music to static to numbers to static to music again, until the sedatives draw him down into sleep.

 

* * *

 

His dream tonight is a little different. Carlos finds himself standing before a lab counter that extends to both sides of him, left and right, until it vanishes over the horizon. Erlenmeyer flasks of unidentified liquids are meticulously lined up on the counter, each thirty-five centimeters apart. Thirty-five centimeters above each flask is a dial, and fifteen centimeters in front of each flask is a notepad with columns of neatly notated numbers.

He needs to pages through the notebooks, read the data recorded so carefully within, and correlate it with the readouts. But when he tries to reach for them, he's stopped. Someone is holding his wrist, warm fingers clasping, not tightly, but firm. That hand does not let go when he tries to pull away, tries again to reach for the notebooks and their numbers within, the work he must do. What kind of scientist is he, if he cannot do even this simple task—and what is he at all, if not a scientist?

But a voice behind him says, as if in answer, _"Carlos..."_

—No, not behind him; above, or below, or far away—directionless, and crackling with the radio's static. 

Carlos turns around, away from counter, away from the flasks—but no one is there. He opens his mouth to answer—to call the name of who called for him; but he has no voice, not so much as a whisper. The dead silence of a vacuum; and he cannot identify the soundless syllables his mouth is shaping.

When he turns back, the counter and the flasks and the notebooks and the numbers are gone. The hand around his wrist is also gone, and the voice with it. He is left standing in a silent infinity of flat featureless shadows—nothing to observe, nothing to record, and he cannot hear his own voice screaming into the void.

 

* * *

 

Carlos wakes to the radio issuing numbers in his ears, obscuring the good-morning buzzer. As he blinks open gummy eyes, he flips through the stations, hears nothing new.

He stashes the radio in his pillow. But he reconsiders as he dresses, and finally takes the pretext of straightening the covers to slip the device into his khaki's pocket. Peterson did tell him to take initiative.

His hand of his own volition rises to his neck, to feel the triangle badge, skin-temperature but smoother. After all, what does he have to lose?

He doesn't dare take the radio out on the shuttle ride, but once in the relative privacy of his lab, Carlos threads one of the earbuds up beneath his lab coat, and uses a paperclip to hook it under his collar, right beneath his ear. The wire won't be visible on any cameras, and is loud enough for him to listen without the security feeds picking up anything. 

As he reviews calculations on his tablet, he keeps one hand in his pocket to thumb the dial, changing from one station to the next, all familiar to him by now.

When he hears Kevin's voice, he assumes he's tuned to the local community station. But when he lifts his head, the lab's radio is playing a selection of efficiency chants, as it has been all morning.

Carlos ducks his head closer to the earbud and raises the volume of the radio in his pocket, in time to hear Kevin say, _"Welcome to the Greater Desert Bluffs Metropolitan Area!"_

Carlos moves his tablet to shield his lap, and pulls the radio out of his pocket enough to check the dial. It's a station at the very bottom of the dial, nowhere near the Desert Bluffs Community Radio frequency, nor any of the other stations he's been listening to.

 _"I'm sorry I couldn't be here yesterday, but to make up for it we have a lot of wonderful news for you today, listeners!"_ Kevin continues. _"Our big story today is of course the grand opening of the local Strex Music Emporium. Things started off with a bang—you may have heard the fireworks early this morning. You may have also seen the trucks on the street outside the Emporium—they're here to set up for the concert this evening. It's all very expensive, state-of-the-art equipment, which is why the trucks are armored, to make sure everything arrives safely, and everything is taken away safely, after the concert is over._

_"I've also just gotten word that there will be a local act at tonight's concert. I can't tell you who—don't want to spoil the surprise, you'll just have to come and see for yourselves! And make no mistake; you do have to come. It should be so much fun! We've got three who will definitely be there, and we're hoping to track down even more today. They're sure to put on a wonderful show; it's always great to see people perform for their own communities, isn't it, Lauren?"_

_"It sure is,"_ a woman answers brightly. _"I can't wait—I wish you could stay to watch it, Kevin! We're all so happy that the Emporium is finally opening, after all those unfortunate delays. But the outdated stock has been disposed of, the ethereal infestations have been dealt with, and that silly secret chamber in the basement has been all filled in with cement, so the foundation is more solid than ever. It's important to build on a solid foundation."_

 _"_ So _important!"_ Kevin agrees, and leads into an ad for Strex business solutions.

Carlos opens a protected browser on his tablet to search for Music Emporiums. Strex runs the chain, with branches in all the local malls; but there is no new store opening advertised in Desert Bluffs. Or, as far as he can find, anywhere in the county, or the country. Perhaps they're not listing it until it's officially open. Or else it's in a community so small it's not worth publicizing.

Kevin's broadcast continues for half an hour, with traffic and business news, and more acclaim for the evening's concert, before the host excuses himself. He leaves the microphone with Lauren, assuring his listeners, _"Until next time,"_ as he always does on the local show. It's jarring to hear him so familiarly addressing strangers—still citizens of Desert Bluffs, and StrexCorp employees, of course; but no one Carlos has ever met.

An hour after Kevin signs off there, the host comes on over the lab's radio with his usual merry welcome. His clear voice gives no hint that this is his second show of the day—he is a professional, of course, and knows how to pace himself. Carlos wonders how many days he's been handling two broadcasts—or more, if there are other communities he addresses in the Greater Metropolitan Area?

There is something tantalizingly taboo about listening to Kevin now, knowing that he's heard more of the host today than most. Johnny Peterson might know of the other show, and likely other executives as well. But otherwise Carlos has never heard anyone mention Kevin broadcasting elsewhere. 

He keeps his illicit radio tuned to the new station, though there isn't much to listen to. Most of the content is recycled from previous DBCR shows, ads and chants and mandatory sounds, introduced by Lauren with diligent cheer. It stops at the end of the workday, returning to the static Carlos heard before; there must not be enough listeners for continuous broadcasts to be cost-effective.

He keeps the radio tuned low, the static white noise in his ears, soothing in its constancy. It continues unchanged under Kevin's show, and the hum of the shuttle's electric motor; he keeps his lab coat on to keep listening throughout dinner and Kevin's sign-off. In his room he turns off the light to change for the night, maneuvering to hide the device as he undresses.

He's in bed, under the covers with one of the earbuds tucked in his ear, before he realizes that in his choreography to keep the radio concealed, he forgot to take his nightly dose. But he's settled and comfortable, and skipping one night will do little harm; he's not on a complex regimen, and if his sleep patterns were being closely monitored, the half doses he's been taking would have been noted by now. 

It feels strange, going to sleep without the easy chemical guidance. He tosses and turns for some minutes; twice he's nearly out, only to start awake from an imperceptible shift, as if those undetectable earthquakes in his work data are rocking his bed. But he's tired from too many restless nights, and the steady purr of static in his ear finally carries him off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Carlos dreams he's walking through a blizzard. Snow whirls in blinding eddies around him; he cannot make out a single feature of the landscape through it, only more white flakes.

The wind carries voices to his ears; he pushes off his hood to hear them better, even as he ducks his head against the gale. The snow is piling ever higher around him; it's past his knees, clumping on his boots, his steps dragging as he forces his way through it, heading toward those distant voices.

The sun shines down through the whirling white, sweltering. Carlos feels the sweat beading on his forehead and running down his face, and realizes that he's not cold, that the snow is not freezing but warm—searing hot against his cheeks. It's not snow after all, but sand, fine white particles slicing his skin, tearing at his clothes, stinging in his eyes.

But no, he's wrong again; the particles which force past his cracked lips burn on his tongue. Not sand but salt, the last remains of a once-vast ocean, baked away by the relentless sun. It parches his mouth, his throat; sucks the water from his skin, puckered and wrinkled around the ropey tendons of his hands, as he claws his way through hip-deep saline mounds.

He is only a desiccated husk, leathery skin wrapped around a skeleton, eyes sunken and hair bleached and brittle. The voices are no more than a whisper, further away than ever, and even if he finds who he seeks, his scorched and shriveled body will not be recognized. But still he digs, sunk now into dunes above his head, and the salt pours down around him in an incessant, unrelenting hiss, until—

Carlos comes awake struggling against his blankets, tangled around him, suffocating, until he stops fighting against them, lies still to listen.

The lights are off; it's still the middle of the night. It wasn't the good-morning buzzer which woke him, but the radio. The static hissing in his ear has been replaced by a man speaking, a lone voice rolling boldly into the dark:

_"We are here. We have not always been here, and we will not always be here; but now, at this particular time, in this specific place, we are here. Welcome to Night Vale..."_


	10. Chapter 10

_"Welcome to Night Vale..."_

Carlos does not move, hardly breathes, huddled under the covers and listening to the voice issuing from the headset's tiny speaker in his ear. His heart pounds and the scars on his chest throb in time with that baritone cadence, his body an antenna, every fiber of his being attuned. 

The voice is quiet, fading in and out of static as he fiddles with the radio's dial. It's a weak signal, nowhere near the strength of Kevin's broadcast. But he can hear the words clear enough:

_"I am afraid I cannot speak for long now, listeners, as we are still securing this location. As you doubtless heard, our makeshift studio beneath the store formerly known as Dark Owl Records was raided this morning. Some of us escaped but barely, and only because three of us did not escape at all."_

It's not a voice Carlos has heard before—like no voice he's heard before. Certainly like no voice he's ever heard on the radio. There's no smile audible in it, no reassuring cheer.

Kevin's voice is so bright it can banish darkness, make a windowless room feel scoured with sunshine. But this voice flows through the night as if another part of it; its depth makes the dark all the more profound, like a bat's echolocation, giving form and distance to shadows.

It should be terrifying, as instinctively frightening as the unknown darkness.

So maybe it's because Carlos is a scientist, and the unknown is to be investigated, not feared, that he has no terror; that the thudding of his heart is due not to fear but something else.

_"Michelle Nguyen, owner of Dark Owl Records, stayed behind, and her one-time employees Sandra Gibbons and Milo Dubzinski stayed with her, to face what was coming for us—to give the rest of us the chance to run. All three were captured. But I saw their faces as they were surrounded, and they were angry, and they were defiant, and they were triumphant. They were not afraid; and they all did what they had to do. Whatever you saw this evening—whoever you saw paraded before us on that terrible blood-soaked stage—those were but empty shells._

_"I cannot say this makes it better. To Michelle and Sandra and Milo's family and friends, if any of you are still able to listen, I grieve with you. I can tell you that they were brave, I can tell you that their sacrifices were noble; but I cannot tell you that they were not in vain, because I do not know. All I can tell you is that we have not lost yet. We have lost so much—we have all lost so much—but we have not yet lost everything, thanks to them._

_"And as long as we have not lost—in the name of all those who have been lost—I will keep broadcasting. I cannot tell you from where I am speaking now; I cannot tell you who is with me, or how many there are left—but I am not alone, and this is not the last place we can hide. They may find us again, but they will not stop us._

_"Listen again, if you can, if it is safe; and tell those for whom it is not safe what you hear. Tell them of Michelle and Sandra and Milo's sacrifice; add those names to all the others you have heard and remember. Remember that they were_ not _good employees—they were people, and citizens, and friends, and family._

_"Remember this, and mourn for them; remember this, and be angry. Remember this, and remember that you too are a citizen, and a friend, and part of a family. Remember those you love, and those you are loved by. Remember as you work, that your worth is not just in what you do, but who you are._

_"Remember, and keep listening, and I will speak to you again, as soon as I am able. Good night, Night Vale, good night."_

The broadcast ends and the static resumes. Carlos waits, but the voice does not return.

He stays awake, in his bed under the covers, for the rest of the night, listening to that steady hiss and doing complex factoring in his head, to keep himself awake.

It's not because the voice told him to, or that he expects the broadcast to resume. But it's not until the good-morning buzzer sounds and his eyes are still open, dry and gritty from the sleepless night, that Carlos can be sure he didn't dream what he heard.

 

* * *

 

The radio hisses static in Carlos's ear as he works. Or tries to work, through the exhaustion of the sleepless night. The morning's coffee and yellow pill kept him conscious on the shuttle ride to the facility, but can only do so much for his concentration in the lab. And most of his limited focus is occupied by the white noise rushing in his ear.

Static from Night Vale—wherever that is. Or was, or never had been...but the voice he heard last night did not sound uncertain.

Mid-morning, the radio's static is replaced by the voice of Kevin's companion Lauren, welcoming listeners to the Greater Desert Bluffs Metropolitan Area. The previous night's concert went well, she reports. It was a masterpiece of technological accomplishment and modern innovation, and _everyone_ attended—she doesn't say who everyone was; but they were all there. They all enjoyed themselves. She's very clear on that.

Was Michelle Nguyen there? Carlos wonders. Michelle, Sandra, Milo. No one he knows, no faces he would recognize; but he remembers their names, remembers the voice on the radio pronouncing them precise and definite. Defiant.

Several minutes into the broadcast, Lauren introduces Kevin. The host sounds a touch out of breath, as if he'd run to the studio; but lively as always.

As always, and yet...perhaps it's only because of the cheap headphones that Kevin's voice sounds, not weak, but dilute. Sure but shallow, lacking the resonant depth of that mysterious voice in the night, for all the signal strength is clearer.

It's odd, to compare Kevin to anyone. Especially an amateur broadcaster—but the man could not be a professional; no Strex employee would speak as he did.

 _"They were not good employees_. _"_

Such a spiteful eulogy, verging on blasphemy; yet Carlos hadn't heard any malice in that ominous baritone.

On the radio now, Kevin puts on a selection of pre-recorded Efficiency chants. Carlos tunes out that droning as he opens an encrypted search, scanning through the StrexCorp personnel directories. Michelle Nguyen, Sandra Gibbons, Milo Dubzinski—he enters all their names, but finds no records for any of them.

Not good employees—not employees at all? But what company would they work for, if not StrexCorp? What had they so bravely sacrificed themselves for, if not in the future promised by the smiling god?

His investigation is interrupted by an incoming call. The number is, strangely, unlisted, and its area code is not one Carlos knows. He turns down the radio in his pocket, answers with cautious curiosity, "Hello?"

 _"Hello, Carlos,"_ Kevin says.

Carlos freezes. For an instant he thinks the radio is speaking to him—that Kevin knows he's listening—but no, the radio is off; he's hearing the host's voice over the tablet's speakers. "H-hello, Kevin," Carlos stammers, not too surprised to also be self-conscious, "good morning—uh—how are you?"

 _"I'm just peachy!"_ Kevin says. " _And I apologize for the connection; I don't have very good reception here. I was going to call you when I got back in town this afternoon, but I just couldn't wait. You see, I was talking with Johnny Peterson—you know, the marketing VP—and he mentioned something interesting..."_

"Oh—ah—" Carlos can feel his cheeks burning. Though he misses the sight of Kevin's face, at this moment he's grateful it's only an audio connection, so the host can't see him duck his head. "What did he say?"

_"Why, that you're getting a new project! Something really fascinating. Since you've been doing such good work for StrexCorp—isn't that exciting?"_

"Yes, very exciting..." Carlos doesn't know if he's disappointed or relieved, that Peterson hadn't said more to Kevin. Though a new assignment, that is intriguing—does he dare hope it might be another ASAP? "Do you know what this project is?"

 _"Even if I did, I shouldn't spoil the surprise, now should I!_ " Kevin says. _"But if it goes well maybe I'll interview you about it—and I'm sure it'll go well, with you working on it. You work hard for the company, don't you, Carlos?"_

Carlos glances guiltily down at his tablet's blank screen. "I, um, do my best."

 _"Of course you do,"_ Kevin says warmly, undoubting. _"We all do! Even if my job is in a radio studio and you're in a lab, we're working together—you feel that, too, don't you, Carlos. Like different organs of the same body—we each have our own jobs to do, but we're both part of the same greater whole. We're both part of the great StrexCorp team. And I'm proud to be on this team with you. Aren't you?"_

"Yes!" Carlos swallows, catches himself. "Yes, I'm glad to be with you—on this team with you, I mean."

Kevin's voice drops a little, to something softer—more intimate, at least in Carlos's fantasies. _"Aren't you sweet. I'm so pleased I got to meet you, Carlos; I do hope we can meet again..."_

"I do, too."

_"Wonderful!—And I'd love to chat longer, but I have to get back to work, and you do, too, I'm sure. Please excuse the interruption, and keep up the good work, Carlos!"_

"You, too, Kevin," Carlos says.

He turns up the radio's volume again as he hangs up—just in time to hear his own voice, saying tinnily, _"You too, Kevin."_

There is a click as the call ends, a pause, and then Kevin comes on again, saying, _"Oops—how silly of me, my microphone was on! I'm terribly sorry, listeners, I didn't mean to interrupt this broadcast with a private call..."_

 _"Don't worry, Kevin,"_ Lauren reassures him, _"I'm sure it was wonderful for all of our listeners to hear from such a renowned employee again. Carlos is a great scientist, isn't he?"_

_"He certainly is, Lauren! One of the very best scientists in StrexCorp, so dedicated to the company. He really deserved being named Employee of the Month—why, I wish he could be named it again next month!"_

_"But that would be quite impossible,"_ Lauren says.

 _"Yes, entirely impossible,"_ Kevin agrees.

 

* * *

 

It's embarrassing to know that his conversation with Kevin was broadcast to the Greater Desert Bluffs Metropolitan Area; but Carlos tries not to dwell on it. He didn't say anything that might get him into trouble. Besides, as far as he's aware, no one he knows in Desert Bluffs proper listens to that broadcast, or even knows it exists. When he goes to lunch he garners no more stares than the usual clandestine eying of his Employee of the Month badge.

And he has other things to occupy him. Such as his new project. His supervisor Giselle comes to his lab after lunch, the first time he's seen her since he was designated Employee of the Month. Carlos quickly sticks a hand in his pocket to turn down the volume on the radio, and tries to act surprised when she announces that he has a new assignment.

That act becomes more convincing when she reveals the assignment in question. Carlos blinks at the clear plexiglas case she's placed on his lab counter, confounded. The bloodstones were unexpected, but this—"What is that?"

"You're the scientist," Giselle says, "and the Employee of the Month."

Carlos reaches out one hand to rotate the case on the counter, observing the object within from all angles. It continues to perplex him. "...It looks like an orange."

"It is an orange."

"I don't understand; I have no training in botany or horticulture?"

"The horticulturists assigned to this research made no progress," Giselle says. "Those who are still around."

"Still around?"

"Safety protocols are included in the brief uploading to your tablet now. I was instructed to tell you not to open that case until after you've familiarized yourself with them."

"Safety protocols? It's an orange..." Giselle's gray lips purse with impatience, so Carlos nods hastily, glancing back at the fruit. "Um, so what am I supposed to do with it?"

"That's also in the brief."

"And the project deadline?"

Giselle's steely eyes narrow, and Carlos feels a surge of anticipation, even before she says, "None. It's an ASAP. You'll start the regimen tomorrow; today you're to review the assignment."

As soon as Carlos confirms his understanding, the supervisor departs. She's not running, her heels clicking a measured tempo on the floor; but Carlos wonders if he's imagining that rhythm is faster than typical. Escaping from him, and the triangle badge on his throat? Or from the inexplicable fruit in its transparent case?

If nothing else, his curiosity is piqued; he loses no time opening the brief on his tablet. He's halfway through the lengthy appendix on safety protocols when another call comes through—the number unidentified again, though not the same one as before, and color-coded priority.

Carlos hurries to answer. "Yes, hello?"

 _"Hey, Carlos,"_ says Johnny Peterson, and Carlos's accelerating pulse drops back to a normal rhythm. _"Just checking in; you've gotten your new assignment, right?"_

"Yes," Carlos says, "and thank you—I very much appreciate this opportunity."

 _"I'm just glad I finally convinced them to hand it over!"_ Peterson says. _"I was one of the original managers—we've been dealing with those damn fruits for months now. It's about time they ended up in the hands—figuratively speaking—of someone who knows what they're doing."_

"About that," Carlos says, glancing at the clear cube with considerably more caution after his reading, "even given the, um, unusual properties of these fruits, agricultural produce is rather outside my wheelhouse..."

_"Don't worry, I know you've got what it takes for this. Anyway you're bound to do better than those clowns from the FDA. Such lousy timing, a few more days and we could've shipped the whole lot...but bygones be bygones. I'm sure you'll figure something out. Just be careful; the company's put in far too much time and money for you to just disappear on us."_

Try as he might, Carlos can't determine from Peterson's tone if he's joking or serious. "About that—the effects described in the reports, of contact with the juice and oils inducing...." He hesitates. Quantum instability? Transdimensional shifts? "...disappearances. Is this effect hypothetical? Or observed?"

 _"Observed, at least as far as my part went,"_ Peterson says. _"The damndest thing; folks just blinked out of existence."_

"And they never, um, rematerialized? Partially or fully?"

_"Not that we ever saw.—A terrible tragedy, of course. But fascinating, scientifically speaking, eh?"_

"Extremely," Carlos says.

_"You ever run across anything like it before, in the course of your scientific work?"_

Carlos hesitates a fraction of a second that feels like an hour, before he makes himself blurt, "No—no, not that I can recall, not on any project I've worked on. I'll be reviewing the literature."

_"You do that. I know you'll accomplish great things for us—great enough, I certainly hope..."_

With that encouragement Peterson disconnects, leaving Carlos to contemplate his research object. It looks ridiculously innocuous, a single orange, encased in transparent acrylic. Though it's difficult to see, the fruit is actually supported on an array of titanium pins, coated with an inert medium. According to the research brief, this is the fifth containment method attempted, and it's not yet clear whether it will last once the orange decays. It's possible that he'll come in tomorrow to find the fruit and box both have gone...wherever they're disappearing to.

One of the primary project goals is to determine that location. The other is to control the travel. These directives are worded oddly poetically—"to unlock the doors, discover what and where lays behind them, and drag over the threshold any who would be unable or unwilling to cross." Whether the purpose is to bring the lost back, or to send more people there, is not clear.

There is only scant evidence that the vanished objects and individuals were transported anywhere at all, rather than simply being disintegrated. The main verification is a reference to a Subject M, "presence in Location X confirmed on Transcript --/--/--" but the date is censored, and the transcript in question is not included.

"Subject M" is the closest the reports come to naming any of the victims...subjects. There must have been others, given the pages of observations; but none are given any specific designations.

Carlos wonders who those others were. He wonders about one in particular.

He told the truth, that he has no recollection of studying anything like this before in his work. But he witnessed it, if not part of any official research. He's seen, spoken with, a woman who phased in and out of existence.

Carlos hasn't spoken to Dana in a couple of days, and she's yet to appear to him again, since she learned the truth of who he worked for; but he tries now, muttering under his breath, "Dana, are you there? Can you hear me? I need to talk with you—I want to ask you..."

He stops. Does he really want this after all? Does he actually want to know how this project may affect Dana?

Nisa said it, didn't she, that it can be better not to know. More efficient, to only consider the goal, and let the company deal with the consequences. Leave it in the hands of the smiling god, Fritz might say. Even if Carlos doesn't have such faith, he can trust the company, surely. He chose to come work for StrexCorp, after all; though he has no memory of accepting the position, he believed in them enough to put his science in their corporate hands. And the company cared for him after his accident; he very well could have woken from that coma unemployed and bankrupt—or never woken up at all, without their medical attention.

Instead, he fully recovered, and now he's here, Employee of the Month and with a new ASAP project. That's the kind of company StrexCorp is. Whatever Dana saw that upset her so, she might have misunderstood. Misinterpreted, not realizing the danger the bloodstones presented.

And that voice on the radio, speaking its blasphemies into the night...

A strange voice. A stranger's voice. Not one Carlos has any reason to trust. It's surely an unauthorized broadcast anyway, pirating the Greater Desert Bluffs Metropolitan area frequency. He shouldn't be listening to it at all. If he were a good employee—if he really deserved the triangle badge on his neck; if he were worthy of a promotion, as Johnny Peterson had hinted—he would never turn the radio on again. He would throw it away. Or turn it in as prohibited technology.

But then, Carlos has never wanted a promotion, or wanted to be a model employee. All he's ever wanted is to do science.

And scientists are curious. It's one of the first things a scientist is.

So when he goes to bed tonight, he turns on the radio again, tuned to the hissing static at the bottom of the dial.

He doesn't bother taking his nightly dose; after the previous sleepless night, he's so exhausted that he feels drugged anyway, his eyes sliding shut the moment his head hits the pillow.

He doesn't dream, or doesn't remember if he does. In the middle of the night he's woken out of dead slumber by a familiar voice in his ear. Groggy and disoriented, he reaches across the bed, mumbling, "You're off the air now; go back to..."

His fingers touch cold covers, flat on the mattress, and for a moment Carlos is thrown into a blind panic— _where is—_

Then he comes fully awake. He's in his bed in his room, as he should be; he's alone, as he should be. The voice he's hearing is on the air, over the radio, welcoming him with menacing intensity to Night Vale.

 _"You probably heard the broadcast this morning,"_ the voice says into the night, as Carlos listens. _"Whether or not you wanted to. I want to remind you now, that though you may not have a choice about hearing it, you can choose whether to listen. You can choose to attend it; or to simply let the sound flow into your ears as just that: sound, clamor, noise that only has to be words if you pay attention to it._

_"You can do so now with my voice as well, if you like; let my voice be only a familiar sound, devoid of any meaning, if that is more comforting for you. It may be the wisest way to listen; it may be the most honest way. Perhaps there is only significance in these noises my mouth makes because we are pretending there must be. Perhaps I am in truth only exercising my tongue, pronouncing random syllables; and you are only fooling yourself, to hear in them anything more than meaningless babble._

_"But if you are listening—if you have listened—then I beg you not to believe everything you hear. I realize it's ironic, that I, a radio host, would tell you not to believe what you hear on the radio. But as a radio professional, I know how sound can be manipulated. How many ways one can change one's voice, or make a new voice. Soundwaves themselves can be electronically warped and altered. One's voice can be changed, by implanting new vocal chords, or learning ventriloquism. And some people can imitate others with great skill, as can certain animals, like parrots, and lyrebirds, and Egyptian sphinxes._

_"So you may hear a voice, and think you know it, think you recognize who is speaking, when it is not really them at all. Sometimes the imitation will be so flawless, that the only reason you know those golden tones are not who they sound like, is because it is not possible. Because that person is no longer alive to speak. Because the voice is saying what the person with that voice would never have said. All you are hearing is a crude, cruel facsimile—stolen vocal chords, or else a manipulated recording: a pathetic imitation, meant to remind us of what we've lost, meant to break our spirits. But it is not real._

_"It is not real, listeners,"_ and the voice is angry now, its darkness like an eclipse, blotting out light, " _if you only listen to one thing I say, if you only believe one thing I say, believe that._ He is not theirs. _Whatever lies you may think you hear, when you listen to this station in daylight. They will pay for this slander, as they will pay for all their sins. Until they do—do not listen, and do not believe..."_


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day more~! (not that I've been counting the hours until the new episode or anything...) And may this chapter make the time go a little faster!
> 
> And I've broken 40K words, and 200 kudos - so thrilled people are reading this thing, as there seems to be plenty more to come!

_He is not theirs._

Long after the broadcast wishes Night Vale good night and goes silent, Carlos lies awake, wondering. Who are they, who will pay for their sins? And who is he who isn't theirs?

In the night, in the dark room, it seems unreasonably important to know. Like this is something he _should_ know—that he has no right to listen to that mysterious voice and not know what he means. Carlos is no part of the Night Vale that the voice addresses, so close and intimately; that voice's sincere pleas are not for him to hear.

He wonders if the fury in that voice, that absolute uncompromised anger, would be turned on him, should he be discovered. If he could be one of the sinners who will pay. Though he's been an employee for all this time, Carlos has never studied in detail the scripture of the smiling god. Perhaps he should have, to know what sins he might have committed, that deserve such wrath.

Unless the transgressions were not against the smiling god at all—but what other sins are there? None significant; all faiths are encompassed under the one true belief, or will be, soon enough not to matter otherwise.

_"You believe in the glory of our smiling god, don't you, Carlos?"_

When was that? When he woke up in the hospital, perhaps. Or else when he first arrived in Desert Bluffs, as part of his orientation.

_"You gave your vows already, when we hired you, of course. But could you say it again, for our records? So we're sure you remember. Just say it, that's all you have to do. All you have to do, and we'll be done here. Won't it be wonderful, to have this be over?"_

_"I..."_

_"'Believe'. You can say it, can't you, Carlos? Or do you need more encouragement?"_

_"I believe..."_

_"In the smiling god."_

_"I believe in the smiling god."_

_"Good job, Carlos! I knew you could do it. And now you can rest...tomorrow you'll go to work, back to work for us..."_

Carlos's temples throb; he rubs his fingers in circles over them. His ear is a little sore from sleeping with the headphone tucked inside, but the soft hiss of static is soothing, makes the headache subside, so he can drift into a restless sleep.

 

* * *

 

Come morning, when Carlos drags himself out of bed, there is a sachet with a green pill awaiting him, his first new ASAP dose. By the time he arrives at the facility he's as alert as if he had a full night's sleep, bouncing on his heels in the elevator up to his lab. Instead of mumbling the morning Recitations by rote, he speaks the chants loudly into the lab, sing-song accompaniment as he readies his equipment.

He'd be lying if he said he hadn't missed this—the energy, the clarity. If he became an executive, he could set his own regimen. He thinks of Johnny Peterson's pill case, with all its doses. How much more science could he accomplish, with an unlimited supply of these little green pills to fuel him? A promotion is a long shot, but with an executive supporting him—and Peterson has clout, to get Carlos this new assignment. Carlos rubs his neck, fingers finding the now-familiar edges of the triangle badge. He thought Employee of the Month was as far as he would make it in the company; but if he's as successful with the oranges as with the bloodstones...

When the Recitation ends, Carlos reaches for the illicit radio in his pocket, but hesitates before turning it on. In his head he hears the voice last night, "... _though you may not have a choice about hearing it, you can choose whether to listen."_

Besides, he'll concentrate better on his work, without the distraction of Kevin's too intriguing voice. He leaves the radio off, and gets started on collecting some direct observational data.

He's adjusted to the ASAP stimulants, even after the interruption; his hands are steady when he dons the industrial gloves. Raising the plexiglas lid of the orange's container, he lowers the syringe, to—carefully, very carefully—extract a few milliliters of juice.

The needle has just pierced the peel when his tablet chirps once, indicating an interruption in the security feed. Carlos drops the syringe into the box as he spins around.

Dana is standing in his lab. Her eyes are wide, staring at his chiming tablet; she's already starting to turn her head—

"Wait!" Carlos says. "Please, Dana, I need to talk to you!" He lunges, not for her insubstantial form but for his tablet, verifying the automatic protocols he set in place were activated.

Dana is tense, crouched and braced to move; but she hasn't yet. She stares at Carlos, wary—or angry, Carlos thinks, remembering that voice in the night, _they will pay for all their sins._

"Don't worry," Carlos says, "security won't be coming," and he taps his tablet meaningfully. "I've temporarily looped the camera feeds, so the interruption won't register for a few minutes."

Dana does not look reassured, saying nothing, her mouth pressed to a flat line.

"I'm glad you came back," Carlos says, "I was hoping you would."

"I wouldn't, if I'd had another choice," Dana says unwillingly, her vibrant voice as flattened as her lips. "But I've only been able to find my way back here—wherever here is."

"Here is my lab," Carlos says. "In the StrexCorp R&D facility in Desert Bluffs."

Dana takes a step back, as if to retreat from what he's saying. Possibly literally, and Carlos extends his hand, uselessly, to stop her—"Please don't go yet! I need to talk to you, I need to know—"

The woman jerks up her head, glaring. "Know what? More about the bloodstones? It was _your_ science, that's how they're finding the stones, isn't it. You showed them how. You weren't trying to protect them—you weren't trying to help us at all!"

"I was...I thought I was," Carlos says. "That's what my research is for, what the company is for—supposed to be for—to better all mankind."

"How does seizing bloodstones and destroying our circles make us anything better? Unless you mean, to make us better victims."

"The bloodstones can be dangerous..."

"Of course they can be," Dana says. "A thunderstorm can be dangerous. Electricity can be dangerous. Kittens can be dangerous. But these are good things, too, and the world without them would not be better. Just safer."

"But isn't it better, to be safer?" Carlos says, then takes a step back himself at the look in Dana's eyes. It's not just the pain and anger, but the contempt. As if he has disappointed her—betrayed her, on some fundamental level he can't comprehend.

But then, he did betray her, didn't he; she has a right to her anger, even if he doesn't entirely understand it. Doesn't understand why she ever trusted him to begin with. "I'm sorry," Carlos says. "That I didn't tell you before why I was researching the bloodstones. I was on a deadline—well, that doesn't matter. It was unethical of me not to disclose the nature of the project, and I'm sorry for that. I'll answer any questions you—"

"Unethical! You care about ethics?"

"Of course," Carlos says. "A scientist is ethical."

"But you work for them," Dana says. "You work for StrexCorp—or are they forcing you to work for them? Have they some threat or power over you? Is that why you're doing this?"

"No, no threats," Carlos says. "I'm paid for my work; I was hired as a researcher a couple of years ago."

" _Years_? So you've been working for them the whole time!"

"Not exactly," Carlos says. "But yes, I am a StrexCorp employee."

"One of them, all along." Dana's hands are balled into fists at her sides. "I thought—I hoped I could trust you."

"You can," Carlos says. "Whoever you think I am—you seemed to recognize me somehow, but I'm afraid I don't know you, Dana; I never met you, until the day you appeared in my lab, last month."

"We never met before then," Dana says. Her anger is slowly giving way to wary disbelief. "Not really. But I knew who you were, of course; and I thought that you would have heard of me..."

"I hadn't," Carlos says. "I don't know anything about you, or where you're from; that's what I need to ask you. I need—I want to know. About Night Vale."

Dana freezes, not replying, not even visibly breathing, like a video paused on a static frame.

"That's where you're from, isn't it? You're an intern at the community radio station, or were, before you disappeared. And that's where the bloodstones are coming from—they're being taken from people in Night Vale, aren't they?"

Dana blinks. "Don't you..." Then she shakes her head, hard enough to make her kerchief slip, freeing a puff of curls. "No! I'm not telling you anything, I'm not answering any more of your questions. I've seen him, you know; I've seen your smiling god. I know what he really is. And now I know what you really are—you won't fool me again."

"I don't want to fool you," Carlos says. "I just want to know the truth about Night Vale—about what's happening there. If my research is being wrongfully used, if the bloodstones are being seized illegally—if anyone is using the company's research, my research, to cause harm, I should know. As a scientist, I have to know. And you're the only person here who seems to know about Night Vale."

"Besides you," Dana says.

"I don't know anything about Night Vale," Carlos says. "I'd never heard of it, until you mentioned it. But I need to know what's being done with the bloodstones there." Only he still isn't being entirely honest with her, is he; it's not only the bloodstones he wants to know about. He wants to know...wants to understand everything that strange stranger's voice tells him in the night. Wants to know enough that the voice will be talking to him, that he can be a listener, one of those addressed, and not simply an eavesdropper, an intruder in a place he's never been and cannot find...

Does Dana know the stranger who speaks over the airwaves? Has Dana ever heard him wish Night Vale a good night?

He cannot ask her now; she's shaking her head again, her gaze staying fixed on him, like a bird watching a snake that hasn't yet struck, tense and afraid and confused, unsure why she's still free. "I won't," she says. "Whatever game you're playing with me or with yourself, I won't help you."

"But I might be able to help you," Carlos says. "Whatever I've done, maybe I can make it up to you, if you're willing to talk to me."

Incredulous doubt shows plain on Dana's face. As if she doesn't merely disbelieve his intent, but doubts Carlos's very existence, even as she doubted her own before. "How can you make up for this? When you're here, working for them—how could you possibly help me, or any of us?"

"You're trapped, wherever you are, aren't you," Carlos says. "Able to appear other places, but not physically go, or return to where you came from. I have a hypothesis about how you ended up there, and how you may be able to go back. Go home to Night Vale."

Dana looks no less skeptical, her arms stubbornly crossed over her chest. 

"This is my current research project." Carlos steps aside to reveal the plexiglas case with the orange sealed inside. The fruit is still there, but syringe he was using to extract the juice has vanished, no longer on the bottom of the case where he dropped it. "It has certain trans-dimensional properties. I'm not sure if that's how you were transported originally, but it may offer a way for you to—"

But Dana is shaking her head. Not, as he first assumes, in denial of his guess. She's not looking at him, her wide eyes fixed on the orange, her mouth opening in horror. "No," she gasps, "no, you can't—if they manage to—you can't give them that key!"

"The key?" Carlos asks, but Dana has no more answer for that question than any of his others. Instead she turns her head sharply, blinking out of being before he can say another word.

 

* * *

 

Even Carlos, as devoted a scientist as he is, knows that occasionally it isn't the time for questions.

For example, when someone—such as a scientist—happens to find themselves on a date with someone—such as an indefinably attractive radio host—it's better not to ask how that happened, and just enjoy it.

So Carlos tells himself, as they walk along together down the path. Not holding hands—but they could be; Kevin's hand is right there, mere centimeters from Carlos's own.

Kevin is right there, and Carlos can't quite believe it. Night has just fallen, the sun dropped behind the looming mesa, making way for a refreshingly cool breeze and the first points of starlight in the violet sky. There's more void than stars tonight, but that only makes those which do shine through the more exquisite.

Carlos looks to his left to study the man beside him, as far as he can without obviously turning his head and giving himself away. He can just make out Kevin's face in the twilight, those oddly familiar, indescribably compelling features. He dressed up for their date—dressed up for Carlos—and the patterns of his tunic are vivid even in the twilight. And those pants—Carlos wants to touch them, to see if they're as tactilely intriguing as visually.

But maybe that would be too forward, for a first date...

Carlos realizes that Kevin is looking back at him—not sidelong but direct, has turned his head toward Carlos, as surely as a telescope tracking a moving planet, smiling. A strange smile, not one Carlos understands—is it acceptance? Or deferral? Perhaps he's about to say good night—

"The trees," Carlos says, before he even realizes he's opened his mouth, "I've been meaning to, uh, do some experiments. On the trees," and he waves at the dark silhouettes reaching their boughs up around them. What is he even saying—of course Kevin knows what a tree is; and what experiments can Carlos do on them anyway? He's not a dendrologist, and these aren't citrus trees, nothing to do with his current project—but he keeps babbling under the intoxicating influence of Kevin's smile, mumbling about significant chances of abnormality.

Then he's actually doing the threatened experiments—he's taken out a meter he doesn't even recognize, not any corporately produced equipment but some improvised, hacked-together device. The readout on its little screen doesn't even make sense, not from trees; and besides, wasn't this supposed to be a date—

And Kevin is still there, standing beside him. Kevin is looking at him, watching him—watching him as if Carlos's own ordinary features are as fascinating as his own; and it's not that Carlos doesn't like it; it's that he likes it too much. He can hardly think, with those eyes so intent on him—were Kevin's eyes ever that bright? The evening is getting darker but in his peripheral vision he can still see those eyes watching him, gleaming in the night. Carlos's heart is pounding fit to burst out of his chest. He doesn't remember what he was prescribed tonight, doesn't remember what he took; it feels like he's overdosed, stimulated and giddy and too high to care.

Then Kevin's hand touches his cheek—tentatively, as if to verify that Carlos is really there, as if he can't believe Carlos's presence any more than Carlos can believe his. Just the gentlest brush of his fingers, so lightly Carlos might have imagined it, only he isn't. Even without turning his head, he can see the shadow of Kevin's hand, can feel its warmth against his skin, and he wants—he wants—

He's leaning back, or else Kevin is leaning forward; his lips are almost to Carlos's ear, as he says—says in a deep voice, a voice that isn't Kevin's at all, yet somehow is exactly how he should sound—

_"Welcome to Night Vale."_

Carlos starts awake, jerking his head up off his tablet and whacking his elbow against the corner of his desk. The jolt of pain orients him immediately from the dream's unreality, though it takes a few seconds for him to realize he's in his lab. That he must have fallen asleep at his desk, after working through half the night—he'd never bothered to get dinner, and his lunchtime dose had worn off; he doesn't even remember closing his eyes.

He doesn't remember turning on the radio, either, but in the earphone clipped under his collar, that barely audibly baritone is murmuring, _"If you see a yellow helicopter, do not hide. Swallow your bile and wave an unsuspicious hello. If you see a helicopter with a greenish cast—it's not a trick of the eye, but a poor paint job. They will be blue again, someday. If you see a helicopter covered in murals of birds of prey, give the secret signal as you cover your face, and you will be counted..."_

The message is clearly stated but makes no sense. Carlos has never seen any color of helicopter but yellow in Desert Bluffs; and he's never bothered to wave to those, unsuspiciously or otherwise.

He doesn't understand; and yet he listens as if that soft staticky voice is explaining to him every secret of the universe. He drinks up every incomprehensible syllable like a delirious man gulps water to cool his fever. It's no less profound to listen to that voice here in the lab, than curled up in his bed. As if it belongs equally in both places, part of his work as much as his personal life.

 _"Listeners,"_ the voice continues, _"as you know, we have a dog park in this town. It is a very nice dog park, constructed with municipal funds. You may remember that, when the dog park first opened, there were instructions issued to all of us, about how it should be utilized._

_"I hope you remember those instructions, listeners. They weren't very complicated; no different than most dog parks in other cities, I imagine. The helpful sign at the front gate providing those instructions for outsiders and newcomers has since fallen prey to an infestation of metal-eating termites, but it was hardly needed anyway._

_"If you do remember the instructions, remind your fellow citizens. Perhaps whisper them in a passing ear when lining up for rations, or inscribe them in the sand at your feet with your toe, and kick them away once read. And you can let any newcomers know, if they are, say, looking to walk their StrexPets, that we do have such a fine dog park. No need to tell_ them _the rules; I'm sure they'll figure them out, eventually..."_

Not until after the voice has wished Night Vale good night and faded back into static, does Carlos happen look down and see that he's picked up a stylus. In a blank window on his tablet, he's written in block letters and underlined, _DO NOT APPROACH THE DOG PARK._

Like a man kicking sand, he runs his palm over the tablet to clear the screen before he closes the window. The image hadn't yet auto-saved, and a quick glance verifies that his shoulders are blocking the tablet from the lab's security cameras.

Still, it's not just due to the ASAP regimen, or to his dream, that it takes ten minutes for his pulse to stop racing.


	12. Chapter 12

"So, Carlos, how are your dreams these days?" Dr. Tithoes asks.

"What?" Carlos turns from the window he is staring out of. He was pacing, feet following the familiar path around the office, until he was distracted by the gleam of sunlight on the radio tower visible between the buildings outside. Now he makes himself retrace his steps back to psychiatrist's desk, the doctor watching patiently as Carlos collects himself, replies, "I've told you before, I don't often remember my dreams."

"I thought it might be different, since you've skipped some of your nightly doses," Tithoes says. For a second Carlos panics—does the psychiatrist know about the stash of broken sachets and unswallowed pills in his room's desk drawer, why hadn't he disposed of them already, he should've traded them away—but Tithoes continues, "You've worked overnight in the lab twice in the past four days."

"Yes," Carlos confirms, "it's the nature of my new ASAP assignment; some of the experiments require regular monitoring, and I don't have an assistant to take the night shift."

"Your assignment, yes," the psychiatrist says, paging through his tablet. "Though I notice your EOD reports haven't been any longer, despite the increased work-hours."

Carlos licks his lips. His mouth seems even dryer in this office—a difference in the climate control? Or else an emotional response. "Again, that's the nature of the work; I only have a single research sample, so I'm limited in how many tests I can run at once."

"Well, I'm your psychiatrist, not your productivity counselor," Dr. Tithoes says. "But if you are finding yourself with downtime, you should ask your supervisor for extra tasks. There's always more work to do, and you wouldn't want to waste time in a company lab, on company equipment."

"No," Carlos quickly agrees. "I'll talk to my supervisor."

"Good, good. So what have you been dreaming about?"

The radio under his lab coat is like a lead weight, damning. He turns so the pocket isn't in the psychiatrist's line of sight. "Nothing in particular..."

"Are you sure?" Dr. Tithoes says, arching an eyebrow. "Vivid imagery in REM sleep is a common side-effect of this regimen, especially when not countered by sedation. And your recent sleep patterns have averaged fifty-eight percent more activity than previously recorded."

"Fifty-eight percent?" Carlos echoes, fighting to keep his breathing from accelerating an equivalent percentage.

"As observed over the infrared monitors in your residence," the psychiatrist says.  
"Oh, don't worry, you've done nothing wrong! But you mentioned difficulties sleeping, and proper rest is important for all employees, even those on ASAP regimens; so I've been analyzing your sleep patterns. It's like running a diagnostic on malfunctioning equipment—just think of me as your mechanic, tuning your mental engine for maximum performance. But while I can observe your behavior, our technology isn't quite at the point where I can read your thoughts. That's what these sessions are for—and the more honest you are with me, Carlos, the more effective I can be at my job, keeping you effective at _your_ job," and Dr. Tithoes smiles, cajoling, trustworthy. They're all in this together, part of the same StrexCorp team. "So, what are your dreams about?"

Carlos drops his gaze from the psychiatrist's benevolent eyes. "I've been dreaming about the radio," he confesses. "The man on the radio—Kevin," and for once he hopes the heat flushing his cheeks is visible.

"Kevin—oh. _Oh_ ," Dr. Tithoes says, and his encouraging smile widens the few mandated millimeters to express acceptance and approval. "Yes, Mr. Peterson mentioned...well, there's a fine line between professional attention and prurient interest. But no need to be ashamed; we're all human, after all, more or less. If that's the case, I don't need to prescribe you anything for _that_ side-effect, do I?"

Carlos shakes his head, quick and jerky, not trying to hide his discomfiture, letting it be misinterpreted.

He sees Kevin in his dreams—but only sees. It doesn't matter if he's asleep in his bed or napping at his desk; since he first picked up that broadcast in the middle of the night, he's only heard one voice in his dreams, and it isn't Kevin's.

But he can't tell Dr. Tithoes, not without telling him about the illicit technology weighing down his pocket. And that Carlos has no intention of doing. His life and his work belong to StrexCorp, by Carlos's own agreement, according to the contract he doesn't remember signing; but his dreams are his own. His dreams, and the radio. And the voice in both, that strange voice in the night, that no one else in Desert Bluffs listens to.

Carlos returns to his lab to find Giselle waiting for him inside, along with a stranger, a short, round man in a tidy lab coat. Carlos's first impulse upon seeing them is to turn back around and leave, claim he has another appointment. But the supervisor would know his schedule.

Paranoia is another side effect of the ASAP regimen, Carlos reminds himself. Giselle is probably here on a routine check. He steels himself, walks inside and says, "Good afternoon, how can I help you?"

Giselle answers with a professionally perfect smile, though there's an edge to it, a satisfaction that's almost smug. "As it happens, I'm here to help you, Carlos." She waits for the door to shut before going on, "Your appointment this afternoon gave us the opportunity to review your research. You see, I recently asked Maxwell here to look over your End-Of-Day reports, and he discovered a few possible discrepancies. But he couldn't be sure, without examining your equipment."

The breath Carlos makes himself take is harsh on his dry tongue, but his voice comes out steady. "What discrepancies?"

Giselle nods at Maxwell. The other scientist adjusts his glasses, clears his throat and says, "Uh, well, it seems, from a preliminary look, that you've, that is to say, some of the devices here show more usage than should be expected, or predicated by, the reported figures—"

"It appears as if you're failing to record complete results in your EOD reports," Giselle says. "In fact, comparing your available equipment with this lab's power expenditure over the past four days, it seems as if those reports describe less than a quarter of the tests you've actually been running. If you're attempting to cook the books, presenting falsely positive results to conceal failures in—"

"No," Carlos protests, "I'm not falsifying—"

Giselle moves fast, faster than he's seen from her before, the blink-and-gone action of firing pistons. He doesn't even see the blur of motion as she unhooks the productivity inspiration rod from her belt.

But he definitely feels the rod when she brings it down on his knuckles, like a nineteenth century schoolmistress punishing a wayward student. Only this is no ruler. The sensation is akin to being flayed with a length of barbed wire that's been dipped in hydrochloric acid and charged with ten thousand volts. The only reason Carlos doesn't scream aloud is because the shock closes up his throat, so only a choked wheeze escapes. 

Instinctively he yanks back his wounded hand the moment the rod lifts—only there's no actual wound. The rod's tap was too light to even redden the skin, for all the searing pain running from his fingers up his arm.

The inspiration rods are Strex's proprietary technology, meticulously designed to inflict no physical injury, Carlos recalls from his employee orientation. The neural disruption field they emit is programmed to automatically deactivate before it causes any lasting nerve damage.

As he flexes his stinging fingers, struggling to catch his breath, he wonders how many subjects the prototypes were tested on, to determine that limit.

Giselle watches him, impassive as a steel bulkhead, the rod dangling between her gray fingers. "Don't interrupt," she says. "As I was saying, if you are presenting incomplete results to conceal failures in your experiments, or to establish a false hypothesis, it would be better for you to confess that to me now."

Carlos waits a moment to make sure the supervisor is done speaking, then says, "I haven't falsified any data." His voice wavers in spite of his best efforts, but at least he's got an excuse for it now. "If you want me to go to the polygraph—"

"Unnecessary at this time," Giselle grates, and Carlos nearly gasps in relief. So this isn't a formal interrogation—the supervisor has probably not yet brought this matter to the company executives.

Carlos doesn't precisely know how it would be taken, if Giselle were found to be supervising an Employee of the Month who was falsifying data or doing illicit activities on company time. Not well, he suspects. Definitely something she'd want to deal with personally, if possible, without the intervention or notice of her own superiors.

On the other hand, she'll be very motivated to work it out. Carlos glances at the inspiration rod she's still holding. Swallows and says carefully, "I swear, all the data in my EOD reports is true; none of it is fabricated."

"True, but not accurate," the other scientist Maxwell pipes up behind Giselle's shoulder. "For instance, the centrifuge has been used, according to my inspection, approximately 5.1 times more than your reported sample calculations have indicated."

Carlos frowns at the man. "How did you figure out the precise—"

Before he can complete the question, Giselle applies the inspiration rod, to his opposite arm, and for a fraction of a second longer—or maybe that's subjective, since now when Carlos sees her move he can anticipate the coming agony. His mind whites out for a moment; as the neural onslaught recedes he finds he's staggered back, leaning heavily on his desk, his arm cradled against his side in a useless effort to alleviate the pain.

His breath stutters in his throat; he's close to hyperventilating, has to force himself to exhale. Over the laboring of his lungs, Giselle says, "Maxwell's methods of machine scrying are exclusive but exact. What were you using the centrifuge for, that you haven't reported?"

"To separate samples," Carlos says when he's caught his breath, speaking quickly but carefully level, not defensive. "But most of my early attempts were failures, and I didn't account for the sample disposal because failure in this case meant the sample disappeared. As well as the test tube containing it, in most cases—I'm lucky I saved the centrifuge." Carlos takes a breath, keeps his tone unaccusing. "The safety protocols I received for handling extractions were...incomplete. But not knowing who authored those protocols, I was uncertain whether a critical examination of the errors—uh, omissions—would be welcome."

Giselle's steely eyes narrow like the shutters over a missile silo. "I see. And what about the other equipment? More...refinement of the safety rules?"

Carlos hesitates, too long; the supervisor raises the rod. Carlos flinches before he can help himself, before he consciously registers what he's cringing from. At his reaction, Giselle stays her hand, says with elaborate patience, "Carlos, I can only properly supervise you if you're straightforward with me about your progress. We have to work together, don't you see?"

Like Dr. Tithoes, they're all on the same team. "Yes—yes, I understand," Carlos says. "It'll be easier if I show you, if I may...?"

Giselle studies him with her narrowed eyes, then nods. Carlos goes to the lab counter where he's keeping the orange in its plexiglas box. He's managed, through trial and error and the loss of a baker's dozen of scalpels, to remove the peel off the top half of the fruit, and cut out several of the segments within, while not leaking enough juice for the container to yet lose its dimensional integrity.

His arms tingle with residual pain, disrupted nerves firing false signals. Carlos breathes deeply to steady his hands as he puts on the industrial gloves and readies a syringe.

Giselle and her pet scientist both watch, intent, but from a reserved distance, keeping more than a counter's length between them and the fruit. Small mercies—but then, StrexCorp is not known for large ones. Carlos anticipated the supervisor would want a demonstration sooner or later, but Maxwell is an unknown variable, and not knowing what the man's field is, it's hard to predict what he'll notice.

Carlos has little choice, however. He draws one milliliter of orange juice from the fruit, squirts it into a prepared test tube before the syringe can vanish. "It's a neutral saline solution, and the inside of the tube is coated with petroleum jelly," he explains. "The mixture diffuses the juice, so the active agents are less likely to interact and set off a chain reaction."

Though the mixture is disturbingly unstable, even not separated; he wastes no time readying the rest of the set-up. A small glass bell jar is arranged on a digital scale. Under the jar's transparent dome he places a Strex-brand Bio-Tester, a little white ball of fuzz with large round eyes and a fluffy tail.

Carlos has dissected a few Bio-Testers, so knows for sure they are artificial, one of Strex's scientific innovations, quite superior to lab mice in that they never need to be fed or cleaned. Still, they are disturbingly lifelike, and Carlos has to suppress an odd sense of pity and revulsion as he clamps the squeaking subject in place.

Over the artificial creature he suspends a dropper, filled with the mixture from the test-tube. Then he seals the bell jar over the apparatus and turns on the vacuum pump. The Tester's squeals go silent as the air is removed, though it continues to move, not requiring oxygen, its fluffy tail twitching.

Giselle and Maxwell are watching closely, leaning forward over the counter. "As you can see," Carlos says, indicating the reading on the scale, which drops as the air is drawn out, "this apparatus weighs 2.177 kilograms." Vacuum achieved within the bell jar, he turns off the pump. "This is the precise mass of the bell jar and the matter within, including the 50 grams of the Bio-Tester." Another advantage of the Bio-Testers; the weight of every specimen is precise. "Watch now, as I expose this subject to the agent..." and he triggers the dropper, trickling the orange solution onto the artificial creature within the jar. It blinks adorably, ducking its approximation of a head.

The diluted juice takes a few seconds to take effect, but the organic compounds of the Bio-Tester's fluffy fur is sufficient to trigger the reaction. The first blink seems illusory, like a brownout flicker of lights that you might've imagined. But then it happens again, and then for longer—the white ball of fluff is there, then not there, then there again.

Carlos times it carefully. The supervisor and the other scientist both are staring at the Bio-Tester, observing its final seconds of local existence in transfixed fascination.

Another blink—and then the subject is gone.

Carlos waits a beat to be sure, then says, pointing, "Now, observe the scale."

Maxwell squints at the readout, adjusts his glasses and frowns. Giselle shrugs. "2.177 kg," she reads, pronouncing the abbreviation with admirable efficiency. "Same as before; it never changed."

"Yes," Carlos says, "the same result I've gotten every time."

He waits. It will be more convincing if they reach the conclusion themselves, and maybe better for him if he's spared saying it aloud.

Maxwell scratches his thinning scalp. "Hm," he says. "Every time?"

"What of it?" Giselle snaps. "You're not being paid to watch a scale."

"No," Carlos says, "but it may be the best use of my time. This project is doomed to fail. I was assigned to find where the subjects were transported to—but this experiment proves that no mass is lost when this supposed transportation happens."

"So?"

"Mass cannot be created or destroyed," Carlos says, "but matter can be transformed, reduced to its component molecules or atoms or particles. What appears to be a subject blinking out of existence is much simpler than that, according to this data; the subject's matter is simply being decomposed. I'm not yet sure by what mechanism, or what matter it's being turned into; but nothing is getting transported anywhere."

"What?" The supervisor turns on her other scientist. "Is this true?"

"Hmm, could be, I guess?" Maxwell says. "As long at the scale is, you know, accurate, and not miscalibrated, or rigged, but that would be unlikely, unless—"

"I've tested it with multiple scales," Carlos interrupts, "but go ahead, check this one. Giselle," and the name makes the supervisor's head rotate back toward him, as Carlos comes around the counter to approach her. "I'll show you all my data; I just didn't want to put it in my EOD report until I was absolutely certain—but now that you've seen this you can corroborate, tell the executives to close this ASAP project—"

The supervisor stiffens, jerked to a halt like the catching of a broken gear. "I don't know that I've seen anything," she says.

"But you have to!" Carlos cries. "The science is clear—you have to tell them that it's an impossible assignment, it can't be done!" and he reaches to grab her arm.

That too-familiar gesture crosses the line. Giselle's eyes flash with a cold light. "The smiling god knows nothing is impossible," she intones, "and _you_ will not supervise _me_ ," and she brings up the inspiration rod, piston-quick, too fast to duck, and touches it to Carlos's temple.

If neural disruption of his limbs was agony, then this is beyond words, beyond description. Carlos has no idea if he screams, if he sobs—he can't feel his mouth open, can't feel his eyes stinging. Can't remember what those sensations would feel like, can't remember ever feeling anything but pain, limitless, unending. Besides that suffering only one other concept exists, an inarticulate desire, _STOP STOP STOPSTOPSTOPSTOP—_

Gradually, incrementally, he becomes aware of stimuli outside this excruciating existence. Sound, first—when later he thinks about it, this somehow doesn't surprise him. There is a voice, the sound clear though its words are difficult to comprehend, higher cognitive functions slow to return, as disrupted neurons clumsily rebuild their broken connections.

_"...very sorry to have to resort to such measures, but you understand, we must be sure. Please tell us one more time, Carlos—what do you know about Night Vale?"_

_Night Vale?_ Carlos starts to ask—but no, he's mistaken; Johnny Peterson shouldn't be here. Or Carlos shouldn't be there—isn't there—not anymore—

"Nyugh," he ends up saying. Hearing his own voice in his ears helps him separate perception from confused memory. His eyes are open, but it takes a few seconds of concentration for his vision to slide unwillingly back into focus.

He's lying on the floor of the lab, curled into a fetal ball. Giselle stands over him, expressionless. Hovering behind her shoulder, the scientist Maxwell looks paler than before, with a cold sweat broken across his domed brow. "Are you...uh..." the man starts to say, then stops.

"I hope you're done panicking," Giselle says. "You're a scientist; you should approach this problem rationally. If you're correct, and the objects the oranges touch aren't actually being transported..."

"They're not," Carlos says, slurring around his uncoordinated tongue. It feels sore—every muscle he has is sore, as if each one was individually stretched on a rack and then snapped back like a rubber band. "Tha's what the science shows." His side aches as he struggles to sit up; he rubs his hip, bruised from the fall he doesn't remember. "Whatever the documentation claims otherwise—there was only one clear confirmation that any subject was transported. I think it must have been misinterpreted."

"Or falsified," Giselle says. She grinds her teeth with the screech of scraping metal. "If that was deliberate, and you were given this assignment knowing you would fail—that we would fail...but that's not an option, not for an ASAP..."

"I did have a thought," Carlos says. Hesitantly—and that takes no effort to simulate. Especially when the supervisor's attention fixes on him, as she taps her inspiration rod against her palm. Carlos swallows and forces his gaze from it to her face. "I was thinking...even if I can't fulfill the demands of the ASAP project...if I—if we offered them something else instead?"

"Like what?"

"The juice appears to instantly decompose, that is to say, disintegrate its target. Complete annihilation on a molecular level," Carlos says. "It occurred to me that this effect might have practical applications?"

Giselle rocks back on her heels. "Well now..." Her steel gaze turns inward, processing. "I suppose if I brought it to the defense division..."

"I'll need more time to work on it," Carlos says. He puts his hands to the floor to push himself to his feet, reconsiders when his arms tremble. "To isolate the specific agent, and make a complete risk assessment."

"Yes, everything will need to be in order, if I'm going to bring it to them cold. How long will you need?"

"At least two weeks."

"One," Giselle says. "This is an ASAP; I'm already being questioned about your progress. I can account for your limited EOD reports for another week, but no longer."

Carlos swallows, looking up at the supervisor. "All right. One week."

"Very well." Giselle glowers down at him, her lip curled in a distasteful sneer, until Carlos grabs the edge of the counter and pulls himself to his shaky feet. The supervisor watches without offering either a hand or a comment. Maxwell takes a step towards him, aborts it when she doesn't move out of the way.

Once Carlos is upright, the supervisor says, "One week. Now get to work." With a snap of her fingers at Maxwell, she turns and leaves the lab. The balding scientist scurries after her like a StrexPet on an invisible leash.

After the door slides shut behind her, Carlos sinks back to the floor, drops his head between his knees and breathes deeply through the tremors racking his limbs. He feels as if he's run a dozen consecutive triathlons, without the adrenaline to rise above the exhaustion and acid-saturated muscles.

The initial aftereffects are subsiding when he hears a voice—a soft voice, softer than any he'd expect to hear. Kindness, that's what that softness is called. Or at least compassion. "Carlos?"

Carlos snaps up his head so fast it makes him dizzy. "Dana? You're here?"

"I have been for a little while," Dana says.

"Wait—don't go—" Carlos struggles back to his feet, swaying as he turns to face her. "I can explain—"

Dana is at her usual spot, her brow drawn up in a vertical line. "I don't think you should be standing yet," she says. "Sit back down, I think I can make it that far."

She picks her way carefully across the lab, maneuvering between unseen obstacles. Once she nearly disappears; or maybe that's just Carlo's perspective; the whole lab goes hazy, as if it's going to blink out of existence like one of the orange's victims. When it comes back into focus, he's sitting on the floor again, with a bruised tailbone and Dana crouching next to him, her hand somewhere between on his arm and in it.

She pulls it back with an apology, peering into his face. The furrow bisects her forehead between her eyebrows. Concern, Carlos identifies that line. She looks concerned. For him—or what he was doing, more likely. "I can explain," he says again, "what you saw, it wasn't—I didn't—"

"You told them the oranges can disintegrate things," Dana says.

"Yes," Carlos admits, "it was the only—"

"But you know they don't," Dana continues over him. "You told me before that you thought you could use them to help me to get home—you know what they really do."

"Yes."

Dana tips back to squat on her heels. Her brow is still wrinkled—maybe not with concern after all, but simply confusion. "Why?"

"You told me not to," Carlos says. "That I couldn't give them the key. Whatever the key to the oranges is, you don't want my employers to have it."

"But if that's your assignment...and she hurt you," Dana says. "I saw her use that—that tool—"

"The productivity inspiration rod. It's all right, it doesn't do any actual damage." Carlos sees her gaze fall to his hand, shivering like he's hypothermic, and tucks it against his side. "Any permanent damage. I'll be ready to get back to work momentarily."

"Do they use that rod often?"

"Not if you're productive without it. That was my first time, as it happens," Carlos says, though even as he says it that doesn't seem correct. He's never needed such direct inspiration; the work itself has been incentive enough. But he knows it will take him another five minutes before he can stand without assistance, another three hours for the tremors to pass. As if he's been through this before, enough times to have learned the routine.

_"Please tell us one more time, Carlos—what do you know about Night Vale?"_

In the disjointed flash, it's Johnny Peterson asking the question; but that makes no sense. Why would the executive ask him about somewhere that he knows Carlos has never been? Besides, Peterson doesn't carry an inspiration rod.

"It worked, though," Carlos says, shaking out his hand, as if to wake a limb that's fallen asleep. "So there's that."

Dana cocks her head at him. "What worked?"

Carlos waves his hand up at the bell jar. "It could have been problematic, if Giselle—my supervisor—had examined this set-up more closely; but she didn't. Not yet, anyway."

"You did that deliberately?" Dana asks. "Provoked her into using that rod..."

"It was the most expedient distraction at hand," Carlos says. "I should have been better prepared, but I was hoping the EOD reports would buy me a little more time. If she or that Maxwell realized what I'd done..."

"What did you do? How'd you fool them? With science?"

"Nothing so technical." Carlos sighs. "I knew exactly how much the Testers weigh, so I just added an equivalent weight to the base of the bell jar simultaneous with the subject's disappearance. So it appeared there was no change in mass on the scale."

"Wow, that's very clever." Dana doesn't sound sarcastic but genuinely impressed, to Carlos's embarrassment.

"It wasn't my idea; I borrowed it from Indiana Jones," he admits. "But it worked, at least this once. And if Giselle covers for me as she said she would, I have a week to study your situation and figure out a solution."

"A solution?" Dana asks. "So you're going to help me?"

"I'm going to try," Carlos says. "I don't know yet whether I'll succeed, but..."

"It's much rarer to succeed without trying at all," Dana remarks. "Though a little more common where I am now, when sometimes consequences happen first."

"Really?" Carlos says. "What specific chronological contradictions have you observed? Anything you can tell me will help with my research."

Dana opens her mouth—then closes it. She stands up to take a step back from him, disconcertingly stopping with her torso in the middle of the lab counter. "I can't." She shakes her head, folds her arms over her chest. "I can't tell you."

Carlos blinks up at her. "Why not?"

"Because I shouldn't trust you," Dana says, not bitterly or angry, only honest. "I want to; I want your help, and I want to help you. I want to talk to you—I want to talk to anyone; the warriors listen but I don't know if they understand anything I say, and it's been so long since my phone worked. After so long, it's so good to speak and be heard, to listen to someone who knows I'm listening. But..."

"But I could be lying to you," Carlos says. "Tricking you, as I just tricked my supervisor now." Before Dana can protest, he stops her. "No—you're right. You shouldn't believe me. Scientifically speaking, you don't have enough evidence."

Carlos puts his palms flat on the floor, pushes himself up to his feet and steadies himself on the counter until his rubbery legs firm. When he looks up, Dana is reaching toward him, her hands extended in a vain effort to support him with her insubstantial self.

Carlos doesn't yet have the energy or fine motor control to give her an employee handbook-correct smile. He nods his gratitude instead, and says, "But I have enough statistically significant results to trust you. So I can talk to you, and you can talk to me if you want to; ask me any questions, and I'll try to answer. But you don't have to tell me anything, not about where you are now, or Night Vale, or anything else. Not until you trust me. And even if you never do, I'll do my best to get you home."

"And you won't give that research to—StrexCorp?" For the first time he notices how she pauses before saying the company's name—not the hesitancy of respect or reverence, but as if it so frightens, or so revolts her, that it's a strain just to pronounce it.

"Not the real data, no," Carlos says. "Though we—they—had other scientists researching the oranges; they've collected a good deal of information about them already." Not enough, though, not what they most need to know, or this wouldn't be an ASAP assignment.

The last ASAP assignment he's going to get, if he fails to produce the desired results. Unconsciously he runs his fingers over the triangle badge on his neck. No employee should be thinking like this, much less doing it. Certainly not an Employee of the Month.

"If you don't give them what they want to know," Dana asks quietly, "then will your supervisor use that rod again?"

"Probably," Carlos says. "Or something else. The company has a number of incentive programs." He thinks of the voice on the radio, _"Remember that they were_ not _good employees."_ As if it were the greatest praise he could offer.

Carlos wants to ask Dana if she knows that voice. If she worked with that stranger in Night Vale's community radio station. But he can't quiz her now, not when he's just promised not to demand any answers of her.

Besides, as little as she trusts Carlos now—as little reason as she has to trust him now—it could be worse for her to find out he's been tuning in to that broadcast. To know that he's been listening to something not meant for him, a voice from the home she can't herself return to. 

Dana is watching him, her bright brown eyes pensive. "Do you actually like it?" she asks. "Working for Strex?"

"Like it?" Carlos repeats, confused.

"You said before that they hired you. So you chose to start working for them?"

"Yes," Carlos says, "I did—I must have." His head throbs dully, an aftereffect of the inspiration rod, most likely; he rubs his temples, says, "You should go now." Dana looks—puzzled? disappointed?—so he clarifies, "I'm sorry, but the interference with the security feeds could be noticed, if you're here much longer. The protocols will reset within three hours; you can return then, if you care to."

Dana nods. "All right." She hesitates, then says, "Good luck."

"You, too," Carlos says as she vanishes, like he would to a coworker or colleague—Dana is neither, but it feels right to say it. As if they're working together, both assigned to this project, if not by any executive.

Or, no. Not just someone he's working with; more than that. Someone he can talk to, who wants to talk to him.

That shouldn't mean much to an Employee of the Month, Carlos thinks, as he flexes his fingers, waiting for the painful tremors to abate. An employee's personal life is significant, of course, in that it can impact one's efficiency. And networking is a crucial component of career advancement. But one must have priorities.

Carlos thinks of Dana telling him, _"Good luck."_ Thinks of the concern in her furrowed brow, and her hand reaching out to support him. He finds himself hoping she'll return as soon as she can; finds himself hoping she's all right, in whatever strange atemporal place she is now.

He thinks of the voice in the night, _"Remember that you too are a citizen, and a friend, and part of a family_ "—a voice that is no part of StrexCorp; no part of anything Carlos knows.

He is not Dana's friend—but perhaps he could be; and Carlos wonders what's wrong with him, that this matters to him more than anything a StrexCorp executive has ever assigned him to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lack of Cecil, but I'm hoping to have the next chapter soon - it's one I've been waiting to get to for some time now...


	13. Chapter 13

"Why do you work for them?" Dana asks.

Over the past couple of days, Carlos has started to become accustomed to Dana's sudden appearances. The timing of her visits is erratic; while she won't discuss particulars, it's evident that the flow of time is different wherever she's physically located. Yesterday she was gone for six hours, only to reappear three times in the hour after that.

Security showed up at Carlos's lab to investigate the interference in their video feeds, but again failed to notice Dana. From their grumbling, Carlos succeeded in convincing them that it was an equipment malfunction. The maintenance crew which subsequently came didn't see Dana, either, nor find the cause of the camera glitches.

Carlos thinks that it should make him uneasy to not be under security's watchful protection, to be temporarily divided from the StrexCorp team. Uneasy, or nervous, or isolated.

It should, but it doesn't. Lately Carlos finds himself thinking about what he _should_ be feeling, more than actually feeling anything.

He hasn't mentioned this to Dr. Tithoes. Disassociation is a common symptom of insomnia, but it will do Carlos no good to be prescribed more sedatives he won't take anyway. He can't; sleeping through the night might mean missing a broadcast from Night Vale. Besides, a couple hours of rest are enough for him to function, with the ASAP regimen staving off the more severe psychological effects of sleep deprivation.

It's occurred to him that hallucinations are also a possible effect. That his conversations with Dana may go unobserved because they are inside his own head; that the Night Vale radio might broadcast only in his imagination.

Though if Dana is a hallucination, she's not letting her unreality discourage her, or dissuade her from talking with Carlos—to ask questions, anyway, though a lot of them make little sense. "Why did you start working for StrexCorp to begin with? For the pay? Or for the labs and equipment for your science? Or do you really want to help them succeed?"

"I'm not sure," Carlos says, not looking up from the prepared solution he's carefully measuring into the centrifuge. "I don't remember anymore. Does it matter?"

"If you don't like working for them, and you don't even know why you are, why don't you quit?"

"Quit?" Carlos frowns down at his beaker. "How could I quit—where else would I work?"

"You're a scientist, aren't you?" Dana says. "Aren't there other jobs for scientists?"

"There were," Carlos says. "Now there's Strex." He starts the centrifuge, then kneads his knuckles into his throbbing skull. It's late morning and the day's first dose is wearing off.

Dana's voice is soft, in deference to his headache, or else distracted by her own concerns. "Maybe you can find another job, if you look. Go somewhere else, where StrexCorp isn't."

"Strex is everywhere," Carlos says. The words come automatically, his voice falling into the cadence of the morning Recitations. "Strex is all and everything..."

"No, it isn't." Dana's voice rings clear like a bell through fog, a sound of warning. Carlos shakes his head, then wishes he hadn't, as the motion sets off a wave of dizzy nausea. He swallows, leans his elbow against the counter until it passes.

He slept even less than usual last night. Before midnight, a scant hour after dozing off, he awoke from a dream—intensely vivid, though what he retains of it now is less a coherent narrative than a sense memory: lying on a floor, the grit of dirt and the plastic smooth of linoleum under his palms; pain in his chest, the old scars stinging, burning, as if the wounds were newly inflicted.

That might have been a real memory of the accident, fractured by shock; but not the voice, that stranger's voice in the night, speaking over him, not ominous but exultant, joyous, _"—All the words I would never have said to you—"_

Then Carlos awoke to the familiar hiss of static in his ear. Usually that white noise is soothing, but as the night wore on and it continued unbroken, he found himself growing tense, anxious to hear the voice from Night Vale.

But morning came with no broadcast. Not until Lauren came on, talking about a new initiative to keep kids in school, on a permanent, long-term basis until they're old enough for legal employment. Carlos turned it off before Dana appeared; but he can't stop thinking about the radio in his pocket. Wondering if it's broadcasting now, that voice in his dreams—or else that's the only place he's ever really heard it...

"—Carlos?" but that's not the voice on the radio. Carlos blinks, starting back from the insubstantial but opaque hand Dana is waving in his line of sight. "Are you all right?" she asks.

"Yes." Carlos rubs his temples. "I'm fine, sorry. Just a bit tired, but my lunchtime dose will pick me up."

Dana looks doubtful, but only asks, "By the way, should I call you Carlos? Or something else?"

"I've never cared much about titles," Carlos says. "'Carlos' is fine."

"Is it?" Dana cocks her head. "I've figured it out, you know. The truth about you."

Carlos catches his breath. The adrenaline surge of anticipation is better than any pill; he feels like he does the instant before a half-formed hypothesis comes into a focus, the penultimate moment of a scientific revelation, one step away from data falling into place to reveal the hitherto unseen reality of the world. With difficulty he keeps his voice steady. "What truth?"

"You're not actually Carlos; you're Carlos's double," Dana says. "Somehow you survived the sandstorm and came here to Desert Bluffs; or maybe you appeared here to start with."

Whatever Carlos was expecting, this wasn't it. "My double? I'm not anybody's double."

"So you're the original, and your double is the one who stayed?"

"I never had a double, either," Carlos says. "I'm a singular individual."

"That's what I thought, too, until I met my double. Or perhaps until I met my original, if I'm actually Dana's double."

Carlos isn't sure if this makes more or less sense. "You have a double?"

"You would know that," Dana says. "If you were _really_ Carlos."

"I am," Carlos says. 

"Then why don't you know about my double? Why don't you remember anything about Night Vale?"

"How could I? I've never known anything about Night Vale to remember," Carlos says. "I've never been there myself; you're the first person I've ever met from Night Vale."

"Yet you claim to be Carlos."

"Carlos is really my name; I can show you my personnel record, if you'd like." Carlos hesitates. "But Carlos who? What's the full name of this Carlos you think I am?"

"Your last name?" Dana shakes her head. "It never came up."

Carlos sinks down on his lab stool, drained and exhausted, like his last dose has worn off all at once. "So you mistook me for a man you'd never met, whose name you don't even know."

"We never were introduced, but I heard all about you," Dana says. "Not your last name, but everything important—you're really a scientist, aren't you? You have a lab; you're wearing a lab coat."

"I'm really a scientist, yes; but there are plenty of scientists named Carlos," Carlos points out. "It's not an uncommon name. There are probably others working for StrexCorp right here in Desert Bluffs; one of them might've been assigned to Night Vale," and he feels a frisson of anxiety at the thought. That the company might have sent a scientist to Night Vale, in search of the bloodstones, or the oranges, or whatever else they wanted from the town...for some reason it makes his gut clench—to imagine what such a scientist could have done? Or is it longing, that he wasn't chosen for that assignment? "But if there's a scientist in Night Vale named Carlos, it isn't me. Until you mentioned its name, I'd never heard of your town."

Dana draws up short at that. "You said that before, but how had you never heard of it? Even if you've never been outside Desert Bluffs, you should know about Night Vale. It must be on the radio sometimes. At least when the Scorpions played the Vultures, didn't they mention Night Vale High?"

"Not on the radio here, not since it's been incorporated into Desert Bluffs; they never call any of the communities in the area by their old names. And I'm not from Desert Bluffs originally; I've only been here a few months."

"I thought you've been working for Strex for years."

"I was hired two years ago," Carlos says, "but not in Desert Bluffs, and I haven't been working for most of that time. I was in an accident, was seriously wounded and hospitalized—I was in a coma for most of last year, and before."

Dana's arms are folded, her brow furrowed. "And you woke up here in Desert Bluffs?"

"No, in a hospital in..." It takes Carlos a moment to remember, through the pounding of his head. The fatigue has sharpened into a migraine, stabbing like a knife between his eyes. "In the northwest, Washington state." Or had it been Oregon? "I was in rehab for months; it was...very difficult." _Put it all behind you and move on..._

Dana shakes her head. "I don't understand."

Carlos's chest aches, a dull throbbing in counterpoint to the drill boring into his skull. He drops his head into his hands, presses the heels of his palms over his eyes. "My injuries were extensive; I needed physical therapy, psychological therapy. The company—Strex generously paid for all of it. To get me back on my feet, back working for them."

"But if you were in a coma for a year, and in rehab for months after that..."

"Half a year, before I moved here to Desert Bluffs three months ago."

"Then was it only a coincidence?" Dana asks. "If you aren't a double, and haven't been tricking me...is it all a coincidence, that I appeared here in your lab, that you look like Carlos—like _our_ Carlos? That you're really a scientist like him, and have his name, and are willing to help me?"

The pressure against his eyeballs creates stars, lights twinkling in the void behind his eyelids. "It must be," Carlos says. "Just a coincidence. Whoever you thought I was, hoped I was...I'm sorry, Dana; I'm not him."

Dana doesn't reply. When the centrifuge beeps a moment later, forcing Carlos to lower his hands to attend to it, she's gone as if she were never there at all.

 

* * *

 

Fortunately today's appointment with Dr. Tithoes is after lunch. By the time Carlos takes the elevator up to the Ward, his afternoon dose has kicked in, driving back the headache and fatigue as effectively as a magnetic field repelling charged particles.

The relief of that release is such that Carlos manages to stay calm when the psychiatrist remarks, casually, "By the way, Carlos, I want to ask you about a search you ran earlier this afternoon."

Carlos doesn't flinch, just replies, "Which search was that?"

"In the personnel directory," Dr. Tithoes says, consulting his tablet. "It appears that you were looking for Strex employees named...'Duncan'?"

"Right, yes," Carlos says, trying not to look overly relieved, trying not to sound too rehearsed. "I was going to ask you about that. You see, last night I had this dream."

"Oh?" Dr. Tithoes doesn't move except to put his stylus to his tablet, but something about the quick focus of his eyes gives the impression that he's leaning forward. "What was it about?"

"The accident," Carlos says. "Or, not the explosion itself, but afterwards, waking up..."

"Waking up in the hospital, you mean?"

Gritty linoleum under him, the impossible voice over him. But that wasn't how it happened; it took a year for him to regain consciousness. "Yes, the hospital. In Washington." Gray walls and the drumming of gray rain against gray window panes, always hidden behind tightly drawn gray blinds. _"Don't you miss the sun?"_ the doctors in their yellow coats kept telling him. _"I sure miss seeing the sun every day...but as soon as you're better, you can go outside again and see it..."_

"I see." The psychiatrist nods without correcting him; so it must have been Washington after all. "How did it make you feel to be back there? Were you upset, or did it give you a sense of progress, to wake up and see how far you've come?"

"I'm...not sure how I feel about it." Carlos squeezes the bridge of his nose to dissuade the headache starting to push again inside his skull, despite the lunchtime dose. "But it reminded me..."

"What did you remember about the hospital?"

The psychiatrist's voice is calm and yet it grates, rattles like rain against hidden windows, provoking the burgeoning headache. Carlos clenches his teeth against it, then makes himself relax his jaw to ask, "There were other patients with me, weren't there? I wasn't there by myself in the hospital with the doctors and therapists, was it?"

"Of course not," Dr. Tithoes says. "There were many other patients, though you may not have had much opportunity to meet them. So this man Duncan you were looking up, was he one of your doctors?"

"He was a patient, I think," Carlos says. "I don't remember clearly, I only met him once or twice. I was hoping he might be a Strex employee, but I couldn't find him in the directory..."

"Why do you want to?" Dr. Tithoe's smile is professionally kind, entirely unreadable. "I thought we agreed you were putting that whole experience behind you. A good employee focuses on the future, not the past. If this Duncan hasn't cared about you enough to contact you, why do you care about contacting him?"

"I don't, not really," Carlos says. "But he was worried about finding work, once he was out of the hospital, and it occurred to me now that I'm established here, I could put in a good word for him with Strex. He was a good man, a hard worker; he would be an asset to the company."

"A laudable sentiment," Tithoes remarks.

"I was thinking of getting in touch with the hospital," Carlos says, "to ask them for his contact information, or at least his full name. Do you have their address, or the numbers for any of my previous therapists?"

"So you haven't tried contacting them yet?" Is that apprehension the psychiatrist's voice, or is Carlos projecting? Either way, when Carlos shakes his head, Tithoes says definitively, "I wouldn't bother; you'd only be wasting your time. Any information would be protected under doctor-patient confidentiality."

He regards Carlos thoughtfully, tapping his stylus against his bearded chin. "How about this? I'll contact the hospital in a professional capacity to find out what happened with this acquaintance of yours. I won't be able to give you any personal details, but I could tell you whether he ended up working for us, and pass along his name to HR if he hasn't. What else can you tell me about him, to help me locate him?"

"His name was Duncan, he worked in security, I think. His wife was Tessa, and they had a new baby, Richard."

Dr. Tithoes makes a note on his tablet. "That's everything? All you remember about this man?"

"Yes," Carlos says. "I've been trying, but I can't recall any more details about him..."

"That's not surprising," the psychiatrist says. His tone is the epitome of gentle concern; his brow is smooth, unlike Dana's worried wrinkles. "As you've been told, traumatic experiences often impede memory. It's for our own good, to help us move on. Your recovery was very difficult, but what's important is that you're doing better now. I hope that once I've put your mind at ease about this acquaintance, you won't dwell on this anymore; I'd hate for you to have a setback, after you've been doing so well here, and you have such important work to do."

"I'll try," Carlos says. "Thank you for looking into this for me."

Dr. Tithoes smiles back at him, every tooth and hair in precise place. "No problem, Carlos; I'm always happy to help."

 

* * *

 

Dana has not yet reappeared when Carlos returns to the lab from Psych. But his tablet has received the results from the simultaneous search he initiated when he queried the employee directory about 'Duncan'. Submitting a search string of the same length and configuration masked his real query, and it was a good thing he took that precaution, given how quickly he was asked to explain himself. He wonders if everyone assigned to ASAP projects are scrutinized so closely. Or is it because he's an Employee of the Month?

Turning his back on the lab's cameras, he scans the personnel records retrieved from StrexCorp's databases.

There are eight other employees named Carlos working in the Desert Bluffs area. Three are maintenance workers, two are in Sales under Johnny Peterson, one is in accounting, and one is located on the Psych floor he just came from, classified as 'on indefinite hiatus.'

The eighth is another R&D scientist. Carlos brings up the full record. The man is a chemist, transferred from out of state last year. He's nearing standard retirement age—'transition to secondary occupation' it's known as in the company—and his ID photo shows a worn-looking Caucasian man with a pasty complexion and wisps of brown hair fringing a bald pate. Even if Dana had only the loosest description, it's difficult to imagine she could have mistaken Carlos for this other man.

Perhaps the Carlos Dana knew of isn't in the records, like Michelle Nguyen and the others. Or else that Carlos isn't an employee of Strex—but no, he must be; Dana said he was a scientist.

What would Carlos's own life had been like, if he hadn't accepted Strex's job offer, two years ago? By now he'd certainly be employed by Strex anyway; he'd still be a scientist, after all. But no accident, no coma, no hospital. No reason to seek the fresh start which brought him Desert Bluffs; he'd likely be at some other facility, far away. Maybe he would have another ASAP assignment, or else be working towards getting one.

But no bloodstones or transdimensional citrus fruit. No mysterious intangible strangers appearing in his lab.

No voice on an illicit radio, speaking from somewhere that might not exist anymore, if ever it did.

For no reason Carlos can understand, that thought makes his chest ache—not twinges from his scars, but like a cold vise was thrust through his ribs to clench around his heart.

There's still no sign of Dana as he puts the finishing touches on his End-Of-Day report. Maybe that's due to their asynchronous chronologies, or else she's deliberately staying away, now that she knows who Carlos really is. Knows who he's really not.

He hopes it's only the time effects. He wants to talk to her—wants to show her his research; today's experiments were encouraging, and he was hoping to test his latest discovery with her.

He considers trying anyway. But Dana not a test subject; he can't make her part of any experiment without her voluntary consent. A scientist is ethical, he told her so himself. She will come back when she can, if she wants to. 

On the shuttle back to the company dorm Carlos turns on the radio, to make sure he won't miss tonight's broadcast, if there is any. He listens to the static as he gets ready for bed, brushing his teeth, washing his face, cracking the sachet with the blue night pills and palming them as he takes a glass of water, to stash them in the growing hoard in his desk. Without the sedatives, his dinner dose will keep him up for hours yet; but he doesn't plan on sleeping anyway.

He takes his tablet in bed with him to run a few analyses while he waits. But it's difficult to concentrate when he's got one ear tuned to the static, silently willing it to end, straining as if he can hear that voice through the white noise, if only he concentrates hard enough.

He's been staring at the same table of numbers for fifteen minutes when the steady hissing in his ear crackles and breaks like a wave, and the mysterious voice from Night Vale begins to speak.

Carlos's relief lasts only an instant, before he realizes that something is wrong. The broadcast is earlier than he's heard before, but it doesn't follow any fixed schedule that he's been able to determine. The signal strength is weak, but that varies nightly as well. And there's no obvious change in the voice itself; the syllables are as definitely enunciated, the tone the same strangely compelling blend of matter-of-fact and menace.

And yet Carlos knows from the first words—words that are not a welcome—that something is wrong. He feels it like a sickness roiling in his gut, like a stranger's hands around his throat; his breath is trapped in his lungs as he lies under the covers, struck still and silent, only able to listen.

_"Can you hear me? Am I broadcasting? Is there anyone left with a radio to listen?_

_"If anyone besides myself can hear this, then I apologize, listeners, for our silence last night. Yesterday an unplanned visitor dropped by, or rather broke in, and we ended up relocating in something of a hurry. So once more we're setting up, securing our successive safe-house. I'm not there now, though, as it happens; I'm here instead, and here is...I shouldn't say where here is, should I? It isn't a safe-house, isn't safe..._

_"But then it never was safe, and I used to broadcast all the same. So here I am now, unsafely on the air. At least if I've set up my phone correctly to wire into this place's antennae._

_"Jo—the others said I didn't have to. She—they told me not to worry about the radio, not today. They were trying to be understanding, trying to be kind. They asked me if there was anything they could do; and I told them that I wanted to be alone._

_"Can you keep a secret, listeners? I lied. I did not want to be alone. I did not want to be with them and their kind understanding; but I do not want to be alone._

_"But we have the latest location to lock down, so there they are. And here am I, alone as I don't want to be, talking to you, who may not be there at all anymore._

_"It's four months today. Tenth anniversary is tin, twenty-fifth is silver, and thirty-second is cephalopods; but four months isn't any anniversary at all..._

 _"So, since it's not an anniversary, I won't ask you to raise a toast with me. Besides, now that I look, it seems there's nothing left for me to raise one with. A pity; though this isn't as flavorful as brandy, after the first few swallows it goes down as smoothly. And, listeners, it may be a mite unprofessional to admit it, but just between you and me, I've had a few smooth swallows, since those first tonight. A few...a few more than a few, if I am being entirely honest with you; and I would have a few more yet, if this borrowed bottle had been bigger._

_"We all know the old aphorism: if you see something, say nothing, and drink to forget. But sometimes we see nothing, and sometimes we must say something. And sometimes we should not forget. Or cannot, no matter how many dusty unlabeled bottles we find stashed in the corners of deserted storm cellars._

_"I tell you to remember, listeners; and I remember, too—even when I do not tell you, I remember. I remember that day, four months ago today. I remember the memo laid upon my desk—when I still had a desk, a desk and a studio with glass walls and a microphone, instead of only a cellphone in a room with no windows._

_"The phone's screen is fuzzy now; I have to squint to make its doubled icons resolve into the single ones I know are there. Yet the memo is perfectly clear, though I know it's not here at all; nowhere in sight, yet I can read every word of it:_

_"'Breaking news: we have an update on the incident in downtown Desert Bluffs. Witnesses on the scene reported one casualty, a visiting scientist, who was taken to Desert Bluffs Memorial Hospital. A source in the ER has just confirmed that he did not survive his injuries...'_

_"...Every word is so clear, though I struggled to read them then, four months ago, my eyes hot and prickling, my throat closing over. Now that I think about it, I don't know if I actually managed to pronounce them aloud to you, listeners. But you can have them now. Have them, and take them from me, so I won't have to have them anymore._

_"I will not forget—I must not forget, and I do not want to. I do not want to lose any of it, not one day, before or after. I do not want these days to mean any less than they do._

_"But I wish I could forget that memo, just for a little while. Just for tonight, I wish I could remember my desk, but forget that memo was ever put upon it. I want to remember my friends, my comrades in this battle; but I want to forget their understanding looks, their kind sympathy on this day that isn't even an anniversary._

_"I want to forget that after I wish you all good night, I will not leave this place; that I cannot leave my microphone on my desk in my studio, and go home knowing I'll return tomorrow. I wish I could forget that should I leave, the people stopping me in the streets would not be the sheriff's secret police, politely reminding us of the night's curfew; that when passing the park I would have to avoid humming electric fences, instead of the impossibly black and reaching shadows of the trees that should be there._

_"I wish I could forget, and just for a little while believe that when I get home, the silence that greets me would not be unchanging solitude, but the brief peace which one appreciates all the more for the expectation of it soon being broken. That my home is only empty because he is working late._

_"And if I text to remind him it's his turn to pick up dinner—as I occasionally go to do even now, four months later—there will be no answer only because he heard my sign-off and is already driving home from the lab._

_"I'll turn on the TV to find something we'll both like to watch, a Star Trek rerun or an Open Heart Surgery with the Stars special. And by the next commercial break I'll hear the door, will call out 'Welcome back! Did you get dinner?' and hear him reply, 'Yes, and thanks for the reminder, I almost forgot! I picked up tacos'—from Jerry's, of course, not the yellow truck that's where Jerry's used to be—or maybe pizza, or maybe he's decided to cook._

_"By then the frog under the futon will have swallowed the remote, so I'll just leave the TV on as I go join him in the kitchen, where he'll be getting our dinner out of its bag or box or burlap sack. He'll still be wearing his lab coat, and his hair will be in the delectable disarray that always ensues when he drives with the window down._

_"And for a moment I won't believe it. Not because I know it is impossible for him to be here, to be anywhere; but because there is—there was—always a little part of me that couldn't ever quite believe that I could be so lucky, that I could be so happy, to have him in my life._

_"I'll put my arms around his waist, and he'll turn his head to kiss me, just a quick peck on my lips as he says, 'Hi, Cecil, how was your day?'_

_"And I...I'll say...I wish I could say...."_

The broadcast has gotten softer as it goes along, the voice going quieter and quieter, as if the transmission is fading, losing power. So when it trails into silence, Carlos thinks at first that he's stopped broadcasting.

Except the crackling static doesn't resume; instead there is a silence, a hush that lasts, and lasts, as Carlos listens.

Carlos fumbles for the radio, dials up the volume and holds his breath—and hears faintly over the airwaves, the slow rasp and snuffle of sodden sleep.

The cellphone he mentioned is still on, still transmitting, as Carlos listens— _"No,"_ Carlos says, whispered aloud, as if the radio he clutches is two-way, to transmit back along this frequency to the man on the other end. "Wake up! Turn it off!"

But the man does not wake, and his transmission continues to broadcast, and Carlos is out of bed and yanking on his clothes before he can reconsider.

This late, most of the shuttles to the facility have stopped for the night. Carlos sprints six blocks to a primary route stop, listening to the radio in his pocket the whole way, his footsteps thudding in time with those soft snores. He's gasping for breath when he boards the shuttle and still panting when he arrives at the facility, the chill dry air of the desert's night catching in his lungs.

The lights in his lab come on automatically at the swipe of his S-chip. The instant the door shuts behind him, Carlos jabs at his tablet to activate the protocols to obscure the security feed with one hand, snatches the day's discovery from its drying rack with the other. With that clutched in his fist, he says—shouts, into the silence of the soundproof lab, "Dana! Dana, are you there? Can you hear me? I need to speak to you, please, now, it's urgent—"

"Carlos?" Dana flickers into being. She doesn't look as if she were sleeping, dressed the same as always, bright-eyed but confused. "I heard you—how—?"

There's no time to explain, much less revel in the scientific success. Those quiet, damning breaths are still rasping in his ear. "What's Cecil's cellphone number?" Carlos demands. 

" _Cecil?_ " Dana freezes like a deer in headlights, albeit significantly less dangerous. "What do you—"

"Cecil, the man on the radio in Night Vale," Carlos says. "You know him, don't you—you asked me about him, weeks ago, you said you couldn't text him anymore because your phone's battery died. But do you know his number?"

"But how do you—you said you didn't—"

Carlos takes the radio out of his pocket, holds it up before her eyes. "Cecil's left his broadcast on—he needs to stop, before those searching for him can triangulate his location. What's his number?"


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much gratitude to Naye and my brother, who talked out the further progression of this story with me and got the plot back under control when it was threatening to wriggle out of my grasp.
> 
> (And for anyone frustrated by the previous cliffhanger or its resolution here, I just want to remind you that corpses have a demonstrable difficulty with speed-typing, so my demise would greatly slow the posting of future chapters...!)

Dana knows Cecil's cell phone number, though she says she hasn't been able to try it for over a month, since her phone stopped working. Given the time distortion effects in her location, it might be considerably more time than that, or less. It's still the best option he's got.

Over the radio the soft drunken snuffles are still issuing. Carlos holds out the headphones so Dana can listen—"That's Cecil," she says, eyes wide, and Carlos doesn't ask how she knows the man well enough to identify his snore. Doesn't care because she gives him the number.

He's entered every digit into his tablet before he realizes that he can't risk making the call. Even if Cecil listened to him, which he has no reason to do, it's too dangerous to use Strex's phone network. If anyone is monitoring, it would be lighting a pair of beacons, revealing both of them to whatever threat is at hand.

Instead Carlos initiates the most secure protocols he's devised to mask his online activity, and navigates to an anonymous email site. His hands are trembling like it's his first day on the ASAP regimen; it takes him two tries to enter the number with the carrier's address to send a text.

It takes a moment to send. In the next thirty seconds Carlos fires off three more messages, then enters the number into the phone service, his finger hovering over the call button. If the messages fail to make it through—

The buzz of the incoming text sounds loudly over the radio, making Carlos jump, fingers clutched around his tablet. Dana leans forward to listen to the radio's headphones, close enough that their heads would bump if they were on the same dimensional plane. 

There is silence for a moment, then another buzz, and a third—followed by a startled snort and a querying, unarticulated mumble.

Then the voice says—baritone a little viscous but the enunciation distinct— _"'What's this? I...oh. Oh. I'm...no. I can't. Not now. But good night, my beloved Night Vale, and my listeners, whoever was listening after all—good night."_ There's a click, and then the harsh, heartening crackle of static fizzes from the headphones.

Carlos heaves a sigh like a body overboard, turns down the volume on the radio as he sags against the lab counter. "It worked," he said, "thank the smi...thank _you_ ," he corrects, looking at Dana.

Dana is staring at him, at the radio in his hand. "What is that?" she asks. "How did you—you said—you said you didn't know anything about Night Vale, you said you weren't—and you called me, I heard you, and I wasn't even standing in the right place on the mountain, but I heard you—how—?"

That last question, at least, is straightforward to answer. Carlos takes his accomplishment out of his pocket, says, "Here, catch."

Dana puts out her hands automatically, and the tiny object he tosses lands neatly in her insubstantial palms—and stops, not falling through to the floor. Dana blinks down at it. "An orange seed?"

"I finally managed to extract one without it disappearing on me," Carlos says. "Third time's the charm."

"But how can I hold it, when..." She reaches out her other hand and takes an experimental poke at Carlos's shoulder, her finger passing through him.

"I haven't yet isolated the specific dimension-transversing catalyst in the oranges," Carlos says, "but it's concentrated in the pips. I suspect that if you planted one in sufficiently stable soil, it would grow a tree that breaches universes."

"Huh, I didn't realize Yggdrasil was a citrus tree..." Dana prods the pip with one finger. "And you used this to talk to me?"

"When I'm holding it, my body is slightly less fixed on this plane," Carlos says. "While I'm not actually transported to your location, the vibrations generated by my vocal chords causes a dimensional distortion which propagates through the gaseous atmosphere there."

"So your voice produces sound waves I can hear, when you're holding this seed," Dana says.

"Exactly," Carlos says. "And it may have another use as well—here, give it back to me." Once Dana has passed it over, Carlos carefully folds his fingers around it, then walks to the furthest corner of the lab. "Come over here."

Dana looks across the room, shakes her head. "That's too far; I'll lose my place."

"Try it," Carlos requests, and Dana frowns but complies.

Her doubtful look eases after she's taken three steps, brightening to realization. "I'm still here!"

"I believe that within proximity of the seed, you'll be able to manifest anywhere in this dimension," Carlos says. "Unfortunately it doesn't seem like you'll be any more perceptible—though it's possible that someone holding the seed may be able to see you. I'm not sure how to test that, however, without, well, letting someone else here see you; and I don't think you'd want that."

"No," Dana agrees, "but this—this is incredible!" She turns around in place, admiring her new view of the lab. "To be able to go anywhere—if you went to Night Vale, if you went to my mother and my brother, and gave them the seed—!" Her smile is brilliant for a moment, and then gone, like losing sight of a star when the sun rises. "But you won't go to Night Vale..."

"I can't; I don't even know where it is," Carlos says. 

"But you've been listening to that," and she points at the radio. "Where did you get it?"

"From a, um, dealer of restricted goods. The Strex radios wouldn't pick up the transmissions from Night Vale; that frequency is blocked."

"But you knew there was a transmission—you knew about Cecil."

"I didn't know anything," Carlos says. "That's why I wanted to the radio; I hoped to find answers."

"About Cecil," Dana says.

Carlos shakes his head. "About you, Dana. I inferred from your shirt that you were an intern at Night Vale Community Radio. Which implied there was a radio station, or had been. I thought if I could receive it, I could find out more about you, and about the bloodstones, and whatever Night Vale was. But I've been listening for over a week now, and I don't know any more than I did. If anything I understand less—I don't have any idea what's going on; all I know is that terrible things seem to be happening in that place, in Night Vale, and it may be Strex's doing—it may be _my_ doing—my fault—"

"No," Dana says. "It's not your fault—not all your fault, anyway; it can't be. StrexCorp came to Night Vale a while ago, after I was gone, but months before you came to Desert Bluffs. And what's happening—it's terrible, I know that much; but not all hope is lost, not if Cecil is still broadcasting. It was so good to hear him, even for a moment."

"I'm sorry." Carlos puts the radio back in his lab coat's pocket. "I should have told you before that I had this radio, that I was listening to it. I didn't realize...I guessed, but I wasn't sure that you knew him. The voice. Cecil."

"Of course I know him," Dana says. "He was my boss, and he did so much for me, when I was an intern. And more after. Though I knew him before I started working at the station, obviously, as the Voice of Night Vale."

The phrasing is distinctive. "The Voice—like Kevin?"

"Kevin?"

"The Voice of Desert Bluffs," Carlos says. "So this Cecil was the official radio host of Night Vale Community Radio, before Strex took over?"

"He continued to be for a while after, too, I think," Dana says. "After the station was bought, I saw him there several times, and heard some of his broadcasts—he didn't like StrexCorp, but he was working for them. And then one day he wasn't, and I couldn't see or hear him anywhere anymore. My phone died, so I couldn't text him; and I started having trouble getting to Night Vale at all. Until I found my way here instead, and found you. But I've been worried about what happened to Cecil."

"He's all right," Carlos says. "Or at least, he was—he's angry, and troubled, and in hiding, but he's been...determined. Brave. But tonight—something was wrong tonight. He was...he sounded defeated," and he doesn't mean to, but somehow he finds himself telling Dana all of it—what he's heard over the broadcast before, and then tonight, the four month not-an-anniversary and drinking to forget, or to remember; the memo on the desk and the imagining of a home that wasn't empty. He remembers all of it as if it's playing in his ear right now, every catch and break in that usually steady voice as painful as when he first heard it.

Dana listens without interrupting, without speaking. But the sadness in her face grows, a match to the mourning Carlos heard over the radio, the grief he could not understand or share, but only listen to, helpless and irrelevant.

Not until he finishes, does Dana say, quietly, "So now you know."

"Know? Know what?"

"Who you are," Dana says. "Or who you were before, in Night Vale."

"In Night Vale—what? I told you, I've never—"

"But you know Cecil."

"I don't—I don't know him; I only know his name because he said it tonight, and I remembered you'd mentioned him before. Otherwise I don't know a thing about him, or about whoever he was talking about tonight—"

"Carlos, if you don't know him, then why are you crying?"

"What?" 

Dana reaches forward, but the brush of her fingers is no more than a barely noticeable draft. It's not until he touches his own cheek where her hand passed through that he realizes it's wet, that he becomes aware of the stinging in his eyes.

He scrubs his palm over them, shaking his head, not in denial but confusion. "That isn't—I don't know why—"

"He was talking about _you_ ," Dana says. "Cecil—he thinks you died. Four months ago. Only you didn't; somehow you ended up here instead. And made to think it was where you belonged."

"But I've only been in Desert Bluffs three months; I wasn't even in the state four months ago," Carlos says with inane honesty, as if a miscalculation of dates is the most implausible part of what she said. "I told you before, I'm not him. This Carlos you know, this Carlos Cecil knows—knew—it's not me. It can't be, it's impossible—"

"Doc? Anything wrong?"

Carlos snaps up his head. Over Dana's shoulder he sees a figure standing in the doorway to his lab, wearing the blue uniform of building security.

"There was an issue with the security feeds," the guard says, "so I came up to make sure everything is all right in here." He scans the lab, sharp gaze passing through Dana.

"The security feeds—yes, the glitch," Carlos says. He picks up his tablet, hunches over it with his inexplicably tear-streaked face turned from the light; and pitches his voice to imitate his supervisor Giselle at her most impatient. "It's been a recurring problem; you can ask the day shift about it. I wish maintenance would figure it out; these intrusions are disruptive to my workflow, and I would hate to have to tell the executives who assigned me this ASAP project why it's delayed."

The guard winces. "I apologize for the interruption, sir. I'll call up someone from maintenance right away, and as soon as they've looked over the cameras we'll be out of your hair."

"Take your time," Carlos says. "I came in to check on an experiment; I was hoping I could get more done tonight while I was here, but obviously I can't, so I'll be leaving." He collects his tablet, makes sure the orange seed is in his pocket and starts for the door. Dana walks behind him, unseen.

Before he exits, the guards says, "Sir?"

Carlos freezes, then forces his shoulders to unstiffen, snaps, "Yes, what?"

"You..." The guard swallows. "Will you be reporting this—me—to those executives?"

Carlos turns partway back to glance at the guard. He's tall and broad—emphasized now, with his spine drawn up straight and his shoulders squared. He's also young, can't be older than Dana; and the set of his jaw is probably meant to be intimidating but looks more scared.

Do the leaders of the security squads carry inspiration rods? Carlos wonders. If not, they must have other incentive programs to motivate their people.

"Because," the guard says, "I heard that you're friends with Mr. Peterson, and you're Employee of the Month, and I didn't—I'm really sorry about this—"

"You were just doing your job," Carlos says. "If I did report you, that would be all I could say."

The door closes on the man blurting, "Thank—thank you!"

At Carlos's side in the elevator, Dana is smiling. Carlos, unsure of what these security feeds might show or not show, of him if not Dana, ducks his head and mutters under his breath, "What?"

"You almost sounded like a real Strex employee there," she says. "For a moment."

"I _am_ a Strex employee."

"Sure you are," Dana says, still smiling.

The guards at the exit security checkpoint at the exit ignore Dana, despite her polite greeting, and merely wave Carlos through. Once outside, Carlos waits until they're off the concrete plaza, heading to the shuttle bay, before he says to her, "This could be all a trick. I could be lying to you, to gain your trust. To use you against Night Vale, against Cecil."

"You could be," Dana says, "but you're not."

"Are you sure of that?"

"If you were Strex, you might be trying to use me like that. But you're not, and you aren't. They've made you work for them, but you're not theirs."

 _He is not theirs_ , Carlos suddenly remembers the voice, Cecil's voice, saying with such furious insistence. The night after Kevin broadcasted his conversation with Carlos to Night Vale.

None of this makes sense. None of this is possible.

At the shuttle bay, Carlos looks back across the plaza at the facility, the tower of steel and glass, brightly lit even at midnight. He knows he's only been here three months, but it feels much longer. Or else the rest of his life feels much shorter; he can barely recall what it was like before he started to work for Strex. Though he knows it's not factually accurate, it feels as if he's always woken up to a good-morning buzzer and a pill with his coffee, listening the morning Recitations on the radio waiting for Kevin to come on.

The past doesn't matter; a good employee looks ahead to the future, not behind. Just as a good scientist looks to the most probable possibilities, the most likely, most supported explanations of reality.

"Are you certain his name was Carlos?" Carlos asks. "This scientist in your town, this man Cecil knows—knew...if you never met him, maybe you're misremembering his name..."

Dana stares at him—then starts to laugh, bright and loud. She's still giggling when the shuttle arrives, hand over her mouth as she climbs on board after Carlos. 

As the shuttle heads along its track, Dana stands in the aisle unseen beside Carlos, and tells him about Carlos the scientist, the outsider who came to Night Vale to study its oddities—"Just things like earthquakes no one could feel or radioactive doors in Radon Canyon, nothing that special, but scientifically interesting, apparently. Oh, and for a while you were very concerned about how our clocks worked; apparently the ones outside Night Vale often have gears and cogs, though I'm not sure what's the point of that, it seems like a lot of work considering time isn't real..."

Carlos the scientist, who Cecil, the Voice of Night Vale, carried a torch for—effusively, and at such evocative length, that the whole of Night Vale knew about him in unforgettable detail, whether or not they'd ever met.

There is something simultaneously reassuring and disheartening about Dana's account, the absurd poetic accolades she recounts to Carlos's face without seeming to notice the irony. Carlos knows that on an objective scale of physical attributes, he is comfortably within most norms for a human male of his age; but there is nothing about his form that would inspire such...devotion.

Once they've disembarked from the shuttle and are out of anyone's hearing range, Carlos points out the contradiction, that he scarcely has a feature in common with the man she's described Cecil describing. Dana rises on her toes to get a better look at his close-cropped hair, then shrugs. "It will grow out again, right?"

"Not my teeth!" Carlos protests. "Or my jawline, or—"

"It wasn't about your looks anyway," Dana says. "That was just Cecil; he likes to describe things so that people really know them. Not like they'd see them if they were just there looking with their eyes. But so that they understand. It's what makes him such a good reporter. It's how I knew you right away, even though we hadn't met and I'd only seen you a few times from a distance."

"Except you didn't." The dorm is a block ahead; Carlos stops on the sidewalk, in the arc of shadow between streetlights. Even in that darkness, the sky overhead is a deep velvety red, any stars blotted out by Desert Bluff's lights. "That wasn't me, Dana. I couldn't have come to Night Vale two years ago; two years ago I'd just gotten my position with StrexCorp."

"So you remember taking the job?" Dana asks.

"Well...not accepting it, no." Getting the offer is the last clear memory he has, before it's lost to the trauma of the accident. "But that's because of the injuries I told you about."

"Or that _they_ told _you_ about," Dana says. "Did you really just _believe_ a doctor, of all people?"—dubiously, as if doctors lying to their patients is simply to be expected and Carlos should know as much.

Carlos's head throbs and his chest aches, a dull but insistent pain, unaffected by the hand he rubs over the old wounds beneath his shirt. "The accident happened," he says. "I have the scars; I had them when I came to Desert Bluffs, and they were already long-healed."

"Then you probably got them in Night Vale," Dana says. "I don't know much about what happened to you, or anybody else in town, since I went into the dog park."

"—The dog park?" Carlos repeats. "But people are not allowed in the dog park..."

"How do you know that?" Dana asks.

"Cecil said it in a broadcast," Carlos says, and then frowns, because though he's certain Cecil said it, he's not sure which broadcast it was—didn't Cecil say that he wasn't going to repeat the instructions, because everyone should know them already...?

"People aren't ordinarily allowed in the dog park," Dana says, "but I went in there for a story, and then I couldn't leave. Until eventually I found my way to that house, and then to the mountain with the lighthouse. And then I found my way here. Which might have been where I was going all along; or maybe this is a stop on the way to my destination. You never know until you get there. But I'm glad I could find you, Carlos. I hope we can go home together."

"But Desert Bluffs is my home," Carlos says.

Even in the darkness he can see the skeptical turn of Dana's mouth. "Really? There," and she gestures at the looming block of the company dorm, "might be where you sleep, but is it actually where you live?"

Carlos shrugs. "I could've gotten an apartment by now, but I've preferred a laboratory to a house for all my adult life anyway. The dorm is more convenient for me."

"You're sure?" Dana asks. "Or is it that you don't want to live somewhere alone? One of the last times I heard from Cecil, he was looking for a place with you. He said it was your idea, moving in together—he was so happy about it!"

"Dana." Carlos rubs his hands down his face, feeling the rasp of stubble, the salt stick of dried sweat, cooled by the night breezes. He thinks of the voice on the radio, the voice in his dreams—but they're just dreams. "I don't...I'm not him. It's not—I wouldn't mind being him. Being this Carlos you knew, the Carlos your friend Cecil lost. Maybe I wish I was him, even. But I'm not. You have to believe me, I don't remember any of this. Not Night Vale, not Cecil."

"I believe you don't remember," Dana says. "That just means you have to get those memories back."

"You never met this other Carlos personally," Carlos says. "If you didn't know him, and I don't remember being him, you can't know that I'm him. For all either of us knows, this Carlos of yours might have been a Strex plant. Or I could be—if I do look so much like him, maybe I actually am this double you though I was before."

"I was wrong," Dana says. "Even if you are Carlos's double, it doesn't matter, because you're still him. You're still our Carlos."

"How can you possibly be sure—"

"Because I can see your face when you're talking about Cecil," Dana says. "Even if you don't remember him—even if I didn't know you before, that look on your face, I saw it often enough before, on Cecil's face, to know exactly what it means. To know how much you love him."

" _Love_? Dana, I don't...I've never been in love." He thinks of Kevin, how his blood heats when he pictures the man's face, his body; shakes his head with a guilty jerk. "Not really, not like what you're talking about it. It's not..." Not rational? Not genuine? Not what a good employee does?

Love is real, of course; as a scientist he would be foolish to discount a phenomenon so frequently and thoroughly observed, to reject all the evidence of biochemistry and social organization and the rest. But it's not applicable, not in the perfect, safe world that Strex is creating. Or in Carlos's life. He's had relationships before, meaningful in their specific context; but not significant in the way Dana claims this is.

Even with Dana's face in shadow, Carlos can tell she doesn't believe him in this any more than she's accepted his other denials. Before he can offer a better refutation, he hears the rising thrum of helicopter blades overhead. He steps into the shadow of the artificial painted hedge surrounding the company dorm, just avoiding the chopper's sun-bright spotlight as it sweeps by.

Dana is caught in the light. For a moment the spotlight seems to pause on her, as she tips her head up at it, blinking and translucent, the shape of the streetlamp behind her visible through her insubstantial body.

Then the helicopter moves on, returning them to quiet darkness.

"Dana?" Carlos asks into that hush.

"I—I'm all right," Dana says, though she sounds shaken. Or else thin—translucent, as her body had been in the spotlight. "I'm sorry, Carlos, I need to go. It's tiring, being here-but-not-here for so long..."

"I can imagine." He's exhausted himself, now the adrenaline of fear and then discovery has ebbed. Besides, even if the choppers don't catch him unproductively loitering, Dr. Tithoes might want to know why it took him such a long time to make it back to his room after leaving the facility. Carlos puts his hand in his pocket, feels the small smooth hardness of the orange pip nestled under the radio. "If I hear anything more about Cecil on the radio tonight, I'll let you know right away."

Dana nods understanding, but she lingers, not disappearing, watching him through the shadows. 

"Dana," Carlos tells her, "whether or not I believe you, I'll still help you. And I'll keep it from Strex. I promise, as a scientist."

Dana's teeth gleam in the dark when she smiles. "I know," she says. "Good night, Carlos, I'll see you later."

"Good night," Carlos says.

"And thanks," Dana adds, "for helping Cecil tonight—whatever you don't remember about him."

Then she turns her head, and her smile vanishes, Cheshire-cat-like, into the night.

 

* * *

 

Carlos does not intend to sleep; there might be another broadcast from Night Vale. But for the infrared cameras he makes a show of going back to bed, pulling up the covers as the radio purrs static in his ears. That's his mistake, because the moment he lets his heavy eyelids drift close, he plunges into a dream like he's jumped off a pier.

He's walking through the desert night—jogging, not the sprint he made to the shuttle stop, but with enough urgency that he's out of breath when he reaches the parking lot.

It's late; there's only a single car in the lot. By the neon sign flickering overhead, and the shimmering lights above that, he can make out the silhouette on the car's trunk, though against that illumination it's only a dark shape, features hidden.

But in the dream Carlos doesn't need to see that figure's face; he knows who it is, and doesn't hesitate to climb up onto the trunk and sit beside him, saying, "I thought I'd find you here."

"I'm sorry," and he can't see the man's face, but he knows that voice so well, "I know it's not safe to be out here now, but..."

Carlos reaches out to his shadowy companion, finds through the darkness a hand and wraps his own fingers around those cold ones, chilled by the metal car hood. "I know," he says.

They sit in silence for a moment, before the man beside him bursts out, "Why does it have to be you?"

"You know why," Carlos says. "I can't let one of my scientists do something I'm not willing to do myself. Besides, this is my idea—my hypothesis to test."

"But one of us could— _I_ could—"

"No!" Carlos squeezes the chilly fingers, not admonishment but like dragging someone back from a precipice. "We've discussed this, Cecil."

"I know more about radio stations."

"Not that station," Carlos says. "And even if you do, it can't be anyone native to Night Vale. It's too dangerous, if something doesn't go according to plan. At least in my case, I know I can survive outside; I did for years before I ever came here."

"But you shouldn't have to," Cecil says. Carlos still can't see his face in the dark, but his voice is soft, not projected to a microphone, addressing unseen listeners, but for Carlos alone. "You're not a native, as you say—you shouldn't risk so much for us; you don't owe us so much..."

"I wasn't born or raised in Night Vale," Carlos says, "but it's my home as much as yours. My home to save—and I will. This will work, Cecil."

The silhouette beside him is turned away; Carlos can just make out the glimmer of his eyes as he looks out across the parking lot, to the scrub wastes beyond. "What are the odds, scientifically speaking, of everything going according to plan?"

"Everything?"

"Everything. And honestly, Carlos."

"Approximately three percent," Carlos says. "But this is why we make plans, why we calculate the odds, to have contingencies and alternatives, so even if some things go wrong, the plan will still succeed."

"Then with all the alternatives and contingency plans, what are the odds that you'll make it back safely?"

"Impossible to calculate," Carlos says.

"Because they're that low?"

"Because there is no objective scale to quantify desire," Carlos says. "So I cannot adequately factor into the equation how badly I'll want to return. I only know that whatever happens, if there is the smallest chance to get back to Night Vale—to get back to you—then I will find it. And scientifically speaking, there is always a chance—there is a probability, however infinitesimal, of anything happening."

Beside him, Cecil is silent, thinking. At last he says, "So there's always a chance you'll come back, and you will always find it?"

"Yes," Carlos says. "I promise, as a scientist. And when I come back Night Vale will be safe—or, not safe, by most functional measures; but safe from StrexCorp."

"Then you have to be, too," Cecil says. "Be safe—since you're part of Night Vale. An absolutely crucial part," and his shadowy form is turning toward Carlos.

If Carlos leans forward, only a few centimeters, his face will come into the light...

Carlos leans forward—and almost rolls himself out of bed. He starts awake, grabbing at the covers to catch himself in the dark. The radio whispers static in his ear.

He doesn't need a formal education in psychology to identify the inspiration for his dream in his most recent experiences. Pure wish fulfillment, to have that voice on the radio speaking to him, telling him he should be in Night Vale after all. As a scientist he can understand, logically, that there's no further meaning to it than that. Nothing that can be proved, any more than any of Dana's impossible speculation about his alternative existence or doubled self.

Dreams are not provable facts. No more than emotional confusion, which could be due to stress or the ASAP regimen. No more than the testimony of a person whose existence is still questionable. Even if Dana is real, she might be misremembering. Might want so badly to trust Carlos that she's convinced herself he is her town's lost ally.

There is no solid evidence for any reality, any truths about his past, besides what Carlos has known all along.

So what kind of scientist does it make him, that he so badly wants there to be?


	15. Chapter 15

When Carlos arrives at the lab, he only delays long enough to check the security feeds, making sure that last night's maintenance team didn't make any significant changes. Then he activates his obscuration protocol, reaches into his pocket for the orange pip, and calls for Dana.

She blinks into being directly in front of him, close enough to step on his toes if she were corporeal. "Carlos! I didn't expect you to call so soon—have you heard something from Cecil already?"

"Not yet," Carlos says, "and it's been longer here; it's already morning. He didn't come on again last night."

"Oh no." Dana wrings her hands. "I hope he's all right—what if he didn't turn off the broadcast in time?"

"We may be able to find out," Carlos says, and takes out one of the earbuds to the radio to hold it up to Dana's ear. "The Greater Desert Bluffs Metropolitan Area broadcast just started; if they did capture anyone in Night Vale, they might mention it..."

Dana bends over the earbud, her expression intent, Carlos's own focus reflected on her softer features. It's reassuring in a way Carlos can't articulate, to know that he's not alone in his anxiety, to know that someone else cares as much as he does.

More than he does, Carlos reminds himself. Dana knows Cecil personally.

On the radio, Lauren makes no mention of local radio hosts. Her description of recent renovations is interrupted by Kevin, his voice giddy with excitement. _"But enough of such boring stuff—I have wonderful news from last night. Listeners, you'll never guess who called me!_

_"That's right—Carlos, our most renowned Employee of the Month! Now, I gave Carlos my number a while back, but he's never called me before. I assumed, of course, that he was too busy with his important, important work. But last night, as I was at home preparing my notes for today's show, my phone rang, and to my delight I saw Carlos's name on my caller ID._

_"I answered, and he told me that he was calling for—you won't believe this, Lauren, but he said it—Personal. Reasons. Of course I was shocked, listeners! He is an Employee of the Month, after all; one would think he would know better. But then he said that he had been thinking about me lately—that I even was, I'm ashamed to say,_ distracting _him from his work. A very brief distraction, I'm sure, though naturally I apologized. Then he said that he was hoping to mitigate the distraction, if I was willing to help. Which I assured him I was—most willing!_

 _"And so, listeners, it seems we have a date! Rest assured, when I next see Carlos, I'll let you know. I'm sure you're all anxious to hear what he's like outside of work. —So to speak; of course none of us are ever actually_ outside _of work, no more than one can be outside one's own body. Why, I might even be able to help Carlos with some of his corporate experiments—won't that be wonderful? I can't wait to tell you all about it..."_

Dana's eyes are wide. Carlos shakes his head hard, turns down the radio to protest, "I didn't—Kevin did give me his number; but I've never called him, not last night, or at any other time, for any reason—"

"I know that." Dana sounds surprised Carlos would even bother saying it. Because she doesn't know what it was like, the first time Carlos saw Kevin, doesn't know the dreams Carlos has had since about Kevin. About Kevin and himself. He's not actually asked Kevin on a date, but that's due to his demanding work schedule and social ineptitude rather than a lack of inclination.

But Dana doesn't know this, and there's no suspicion in her voice, only concern, and tentative hope. "If this Kevin is making up such things, then I doubt they did capture Cecil. They wouldn't be trying so hard to hurt him like this, if they had him in their power."

"Hurt him—but how could this hurt him?" Carlos's stomach roils with nonsensical guilt. "If Cecil thinks that I'm—that is, the Carlos he knew—is dead...?"

"That would make it worse, wouldn't it?" Dana muses. "That you're dead and _still_ dating someone else..."

Dana leaves again, but Carlos keeps the radio on as he works on the oranges. Neither Kevin nor Lauren make any more references to dates, or rebellious radio hosts. Carlos doesn't get much done regardless; he hasn't been listening to the Greater Metropolitan Area show lately, and had forgotten how hard it is to concentrate with Kevin whispering in his ear through the headset, close and private, as if the man is standing right behind him.

And no sooner does Kevin leave Night Vale than he comes over the laboratory radio for the Desert Bluffs show. It's not so brief a distraction after all, when every word broadcast reminds Carlos of the well-formed lips saying them, of the adept fingers curled around the microphone. Reminds him of his dreams, heat rising under his skin at that imagined touch.

He tries to think instead of his dream last night, of the shadowed figure he sat beside. But though he clearly remembers the voice, Cecil's resonant baritone, he cannot recall any feature of that dark silhouette against the partially starry sky.

 _Of course not; you don't know what Cecil looks like_ , Carlos thinks. Because he only knows Cecil's voice, has never met the man, whatever Dana insists. Until last night he didn't even know his name.

He experimentally searches for Cecil in StrexCorp's databases, but finds no local employees. He's just entered Dana's name when the woman herself reappears. 

Simultaneously his tablet buzzes with an incoming call, with an extension from the Psych department. Carlos isn't too surprised; he was using the same cover name to conceal his searches. Though he wasn't expecting it to be noticed so quickly. He waves a hidden greeting to Dana under the lab counter as he answers the call, "Yes, Dr. Tithoes?"

 _"Excuse the interruption of your important work,"_ the psychiatrist says, smiling at Carlos with his usual certified friendliness on the tablet screen. _"I wanted to give you the good news as soon as possible. Yesterday I got in touch with your former primary care worker at the hospital where you were treated. I asked Dr. Talbot about that acquaintance of yours, Duncan."_

Carlos freezes, as the doctor continues, _"It seems that he made a good recovery, and both he and his wife Tessa were hired by a Strex subsidiary. They're gainfully employed now at one of our northwest manufacturing plants."_

"—Carlos?" Dana's query is unnecessarily quiet, as if to keep from interrupting the doctor with her inaudible voice. 

It's enough to snap Carlos from his shock. He musters a by-the-handbook smile for Dr. Tithoes, says, "That's good to hear. Very reassuring. Thank you for looking into it and letting me know."

 _"I'm glad to be able to help,"_ Dr. Tithoes says. _"Hopefully you'll be able to concentrate on your assigned research now, knowing that matter is so satisfactorily settled."_

There is a hint of warning in the psychiatrist's inflection, an emphasis on 'assigned' to remind Carlos where his focus should be. As productivity encouragement goes, it's gentle; the psychiatrist has far more potent tools at his disposal. "Yes, it will, thank you," Carlos gets out. "Actually, if you'll excuse me, I should be getting back to my current experiment..."

 _"Of course,"_ the psychiatrist says, pleased by such immediate response to his message. _"Have a productive day!"_

"You, too," Carlos says. He cuts the connection and closes the open search prompt as well, setting down the tablet. It won't be safe to run any more searches, however well masked. Not when his employee account is so closely monitored. He'll need to find another option...

"Carlos?" Dana asks. "What's wrong? When that man told you that your friends were working for Strex, you looked...are you worried about them?"

"No." Carlos shakes his head. "Not in the least—it'd be pointless to worry about them. Because they're not real. I was using false names to encrypt my searches; they're characters from an old TV show." He hadn't been too concerned about having that subterfuge discovered; it was a matter of psychological record that his memories from his recovery were unreliable. He'd expected Dr. Tithoes to tell him that the hospital had no record of the people in question.

Dana cocks her head, curious. "Does Strex often hire nonexistent people?"

"No," Carlos says. "Dr. Tithoes was lying to me. Telling me what he thought I wanted to hear—what would get me back to work." It only makes sense, really. More efficient, to not even bother to contact the hospital to confirm any of it.

He thinks of Tithoes's reassuring smile. How easily he'd lied, without a hint of deception in his voice or his eyes. How many other lies has he told, that he's so practiced at it? Carlos rubs his throbbing temples.

"Was he lying about all of it?" Dana asks. "That Dr. Talbot he mentioned, do you remember him?"

 _No,_ Carlos tries to say—or yes?—but either way nothing comes out. His jaw is clenched, locked with his teeth gritted. Dr. Talbot—he doesn't recall meeting the man, but hearing the name calls up the memory of a heavy-jowled, florid face leaning over him; a nasal voice speaking—over his shoulder, not to him—

_"Every scan we've run indicates he's telling the truth; he really doesn't remember a damn thing about—"_

The headache spikes into a migraine so fast it makes Carlos dizzy. He grabs at the counter to steady himself, shuts his eyes and swallows back bile.

"Carlos?" and Dana no longer sounds concerned but outright alarmed. Carlos focuses on her voice, on the cool draft against his arm that he knows is her hand. Insubstantial though it is, the awareness of it, of her sympathetic presence, steadies him.

He breathes in and out, putting all his effort into the working of his lungs, until the pain in his head recedes enough for him to dare open his eyes and meet Dana's worried stare. "Would you mind doing something for me, Dana?" he asks her. "Taking part in a minor experiment?"

"Sure, what can I do?"

Carlos points at the ion counter set up beside the box with the orange. "Do you see the readout here? Please read me aloud the numbers as they change."

"All right," Dana says, as Carlos gets his tablet and opens a new document, then turns his back on Dana and the equipment. As Dana obediently reads off the changing numbers, Carlos types them out.

When he's recorded a couple of dozen digits, he says, "That's sufficient, thank you."

Dana comes back around to his desk as he calls up the counter's data. "What's that?"

"The readout that counter transmits to my tablet in real-time," Carlos says. "What you were reading aloud just now."

"If you have it on your tablet already, why did you need me to read it?"

"That was the experiment," Carlos says, bringing up the document of recorded numbers and copying them over to the readout.

They blink green, confirming every number matches. One hundred percent accuracy.

Dana is frowning. "You were testing my ability to read numbers?"

"No; I was testing my own ability," Carlos says. "I couldn't see that readout. And the background radiation fluctuations are entirely random; there is no possible way I could have guessed them. I'd have been lucky to get one number right in this sequence, much less all of them—if I were simply imagining them."

"But you weren't imagining them; I was reading them to you."

"Exactly," Carlos says. "Which implies that you're real, not simply a hallucination. And really here, if not corporeal."

Dana's eyes widen. "You mean, you've proved my existence? With science?"

"Not definitively; there are other explanations. It's possible I've developed some latent clairvoyant or precognitive ability," Carlos says. "Or that I'm hallucinating or otherwise imagining my entire environment—or conversely, that you're imagining me. But accepting the conditions that I am real and have functional perceptions and no psychic talents, the observable evidence is that you exist."

He'd forgotten how widely Dana can smile. "Carlos, that might be the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me! So does this mean you believe me about Night Vale?"

"I believe that you're from Night Vale," Carlos says, "and that if you exist, the odds are high that it does as well. As well as Cecil and his radio broadcast, since you've also attested to it. But that I could have lived there myself—that I could know Cecil—there's no corroborating evidence for that."

Dana's smile doesn't falter. "Then we'll just have to find some!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter than I intended, because the scene after this one is being difficult (Cecil is not speaking to me tonight) and I wanted to post something, as I'm going on vacation for a couple weeks and may not have much time for writing or posting while I'm away. But rest assured that this story isn't over, and I swear things will actually be happening in it again soon (many things...sorry, Carlos!)


	16. Chapter 16

Carlos doesn't risk leaving work early, but he stays only a few moments later than expected of someone on an ASAP project. He returns to the company dorm only long enough to change into more casual clothes, and collect a baggie of the unswallowed pills hidden in his desk drawer.

With this payment, he goes to Frank's. By the time he arrives it's late evening, and the bar is crowded with off-duty scientists. Carlos makes his way to the back corner. Dana follows after him, looking around with interest as he orders a beer.

"Sorry I can't get you anything," Carlos murmurs to her, raising his glass to hide his lips.

"If you get me home, then I'll buy you a drink!" Dana says. "So you'll just have to come to Night Vale to collect." She can't sit down, passing through bar stools and the people on them alike, and the place is so crowded that the only place she can stand without being walked through is within the bar itself. The polished countertop bisects her torso, making her look disconcertingly like a magician's assistant who was sawed in half one too many times.

Dana looks like she's enjoying herself, however, even under the circumstances. "It's so nice to be somewhere other than the mountain or that lab! Though it's odd, being here."

"How so?" Carlos asks into his beer foam.

"This is Desert Bluffs, isn't it? And everyone here are Strex employees, right?"

Carlos nods, raising a questioning eyebrow. 

"After what I've heard, after what Cecil saw before," Dana says, passing her hand over the bar's dark grain, "I expected something else. More blood and viscera, at least..."

"Blood and...? Oh, you mean vital fluid technology," Carlos says. "For state-of-the-art there's places like Meyer's, where executives go. Frank's is cheap, for regular employees."

"So is that why everyone looks like this?" Dana asks, and when Carlos raises his other eyebrow, explains, "Like real people. Or mostly. If they had actual smiles, and the bartenders had a few more appendages, I could almost think we were back in my favorite bar in Night Vale."

 _Appendages?_ —but before Carlos can inquire, one of the inadequately limbed bartenders in question approaches. "Can I get you anything?" the woman asks, even though Carlos's beer is still three-quarters full. "Carlos?"

Carlos meets Kylie's eyes for a moment, then ducks his head again so his lips can't be read. Under the bustle of the crowd he says, "Hopefully; that's why I came."

The dealer plants her elbows on the bar, leans in. "What do you have for me?"

"Twelve night-time doses, doubles."

Kylie blinks once; it's as much shock as she'll allow herself to show. "You've been sleeping natural for two weeks?"

"Not sleeping so much, no," Carlos says. "Are they worth something to you?"

"That depends on what you're looking for this time," the bartender says. "Illicit tech is hard to come by."

"Not tech," Carlos says. "I need a new employee account. A separate login that won't be tracked."

"Is that all?" Kylie almost looks disappointed. "What kind of permissions are you hoping to get? Admin access to adjust your reviews? An HR account to issue a bonus? Or just uncensored video downloads?"

"Are any of those secure?"

The bartender shrugs. "For one action, maybe. If you're lucky. If you're not...executives don't take kindly to their accounts being spoofed."

"Just a regular employee account," Carlos says. "As long as its activity won't immediately be traced back to me. Can you do it?"

"For a dozen doses? Sure," Kylie says. "Order another drink and I'll upload it to your S-chip as you pay."

Carlos pushes his half-empty beer glass to her for a refill, then extends his arm across the bar, bending his arm awkwardly to keep from passing through Dana, who is watching with interest. Ignoring her, the bartender sets her scanner over the S-chip in Carlos's wrist, then leans over flirtatiously, lips brushing his earlobe, to murmur, "I'll give you the account name when you give me the pills."

He reaches into his pocket, only to be stopped by a sharp hiss. "Not _now_ ," Kylie says. "God's lips, even if you are Employee of the Month, how have you not gotten caught yet? Later, when it's clearing out. For now relax, have a drink. Try to look less like a man on a mission. Isn't that a friend of yours over there?"

"Who? Where?" For a panicked moment Carlos wonders what possible reason Johnny Peterson could have to come to an employee dive.

It's not the executive, however, but Fritz the geologist. His former colleague is doing shots with half a dozen other off-duty scientists, but upon spotting Carlos he makes his way over to inveigle Carlos to join them.

Carlos gives an apologetic shrug to Dana, who nods back understanding. "I was getting tired anyway," she says and vanishes, while Carlos joins Fritz's party in their booth.

Carlos doesn't know any of the other scientists, and they pay little attention to him past Fritz's introduction. This is to his advantage; no one notices when he only wets his lips on his drink and doesn't order another.

During a lull in the conversation, he asks Fritz if Nisa will be joining them later. He'd like the chance to talk with his other colleague, hear how she's faring with the bloodstone project. But Fritz just stares at him, eyes already bleary. "Nisa? What, no, of course not. Didn't you hear?"

"Hear what?"

But Fritz has already turned to back to his other friends, chiming glasses before he knocks back his drink in one gulp and waves at the bar for another.

They've got work tomorrow—it seems like it's always a workday tomorrow; Carlos can't actually remember when his last day off was. When he gets down to it he's not entirely sure there were ever any restdays; maybe he's misremembering? Despite this, the bar stays busy well into the night, with more people coming in from late shifts and overtime to replace those who turn in early. It's past midnight before the crowd thins enough that Kylie, still behind the bar, gives Carlos a nod.

Carlos volunteers to get the last order of drinks for those of their group remaining. He takes the empty beer pitcher and goes to the end of the bar to hand it back, after dumping his supply of untaken pills inside, wrapped in a napkin. Kylie gives this subterfuge an approving nod as she takes the pitcher, and passes him a cardboard coaster with a string of numbers printed on the back.

Carlos pockets the coaster, is turning away when the bartender's hand on his arm stops him. Her eyes study him through the bar's dim lighting, her lips barely moving as she asks him, "This account isn't just to download porn or unlicensed music, is it?"

"TV shows," Carlos says. "I miss watching _Star Trek_."

Kylie snorts. "Sure it is. I hope boldly going where no one has gone before is worth your career, when you get caught."

"What about you?" Carlos replies, angling his chin at her apron pocket, bulging with his illicit payment. "Is doing this worth getting caught for you?"

The dealer smirks. "But I'm not getting caught." She lets go of his arm, tells him, "Next time you come, all you're getting is a drink."

"I understand," Carlos says. "And thank you, Kylie."

The bartender shakes her head. Carlos can't tell if she's dismissing his foolishness or rejecting his thanks. Either way, as she turns away he thinks he hears her murmur, "Good luck."

But it's too quiet for him to be sure.

Account on his S-chip and username in his pocket, Carlos intends to go back to the dorm immediately, for at least the illusion of privacy. But on his way out of the bar he realizes that Fritz's friends have all called it a night, leaving the man alone in the booth. He slumps, head drooping so far it's almost resting on the table and his half-full glass tipping precariously from his lax hand.

Fritz has work tomorrow, same as all of them; and as far as Carlos knows he's not on a strong enough regimen to entirely annul a hangover. Carlos goes to the booth, takes the geologist's shoulder when saying his name doesn't work and gives him a shake. Fritz jerks, blinks up at Carlos with drunken asynchronicity. "C'los?"

"Come on, let's get you to the shuttle," Carlos offers, pulling his former colleague to his feet and leading him outside. Fritz can walk, but not in a straight line; Carlos has to keep a hand on his shoulder to steer him out the door.

The streets are mostly empty, but for a few other stumbling pedestrians and the grumble of passing helicopters overhead. Once they're a block from the bar, with no one on their side of the street, Carlos takes the opportunity to ask, "So where is Nisa now, that she couldn't come tonight? I didn't hear. Did she get another ASAP assignment?"

Fritz shakes his head, but not a refusal. "Wanted—been wanting to tell you, Carlos," he mumbles. "I swear—swear on God's smile, s'not my fault, I didn't—I didn't report her. I warned her, I tried to tell Nisa t'stop, I swear—"

Carlos stops them on the sidewalk, abruptly enough that Fritz trips over his feet and nearly faceplants. He stands there, swaying, as Carlos swings around to face him. "What happened to Nisa, Fritz?"

"Reassigned," Fritz says. "She was taken las' week. For retraining."

"Retraining," Carlos repeats in numb horror. Thinking of Nisa, with her brilliant mind and wide smile, perfectly by the book and yet she made it look like she meant it. "Why? She's a good scientist, a good worker, she's been a loyal employee for years; why retrain her?"

"Not good 'nough," Fritz slurs. Under the streetlight his face is pallid, drunk and sickly. "Last time we met you...was after that. She kept looking into 'em. The bloodstones. On her own time, trying to figure out where they were coming from. Who they were getting 'em from. I told her an' told her it didn't matter, knowing that wasn't her job; but she wanted to know anyway. Then she stopped answering my texts, an' finally I asked, an' I found out, jus' a couple days ago..."

Carlos's stomach is churning as if he'd been matching shots with Fritz. "What position did she get reassigned to?"

Fritz shakes his head, wobbling. "Don' know. I've looked, haven't seen her, not anywhere..." His face twists, like he's going to cry—or vomit, Carlos realizes barely in time to get his shoes clear. He keeps a steadying hand on the man's back as Fritz heaves into the gutter.

When he finishes, Fritz wipes his sleeve across his mouth, says with remarkable clarity, "I need to be getting home. Busy day tomorrow."

"Aren't they all," Carlos says, but under his breath. More loudly he says, "The shuttle stop's right across the street."

As they make their way to the stand, he asks Fritz, "Is there any chance Nisa will be reassigned to another position in R&D, do you think?"

"Like a lab tech? Prob'ly not," Fritz says. "If they wanna make an example they'll put her in maintenance. Like poor Doc Blanchard, cleaning those bathroom mirrors..."

"But she's an experienced scientist," Carlos says. "Couldn't she be retrained for another research position?"

Fritz shakes his head. "She's never doing research again. Not after retraining. You don't...don't keep enough. You know. In your head," and he waves vaguely at his cranium. "No one comes out of retraining smart enough to do science. The procedure's good, but it's not that good."

"What do you know about retraining, Fritz?" Carlos asks.

It's not a topic that employees are encouraged to discuss, but Fritz isn't in a condition to self-censor. "Lots 'n lots! More than I should...I went out a Retrainer, y'know, couple years ago. Got serious...I got a ring. But I wasn't good for her _productivity_ ," he sounds out the word with effort, carefully enunciating each syllable, "so the execs told her it was no go. Broke up, broke my heart...she offered to make me forget it. Said she'd put in the requisition herself if I wanted, really sweet of her..."

They've reached the shuttle stop, and Carlos was intending to leave Fritz to wait for it; but this halts him in his tracks. He sits down next to Fritz, asks, "The company could have done that? Made you forget you even knew her, erased your relationship?"

"Sure, yeah," Fritz says. "Would've been like it never happened. 'Cept I wouldn't be a geologist anymore, either. Memories are tricky, all tangled up...try 'n remove one thing, but other stuff always gets lost with it. So I said no...think it was the right call, though for a while I thought it wasn't... Y'know, you're right, even if I found her now she prob'ly won't know me. Hope she's still got her family, at least a bit. Her son, she was so damn proud of that kid..."

"—Your lover had a son?"

"Nisa's not my lover!" Fritz protests, but his inebriated indignation gives way to maudlin rambling. "She's happily married—was happy—they had me over for dinner a couple times. Her husband's great, a great guy, great employee; an' her boy's a nice kid, will be a good worker soon...if she knows them anymore...it wasn't my fault, Carlos, I _tried_ , I tried to tell her," and now he's actually crying, dribbling messy tears into Carlos's shoulder.

Carlos would almost rather he was throwing up again. He pats his former colleague's back awkwardly, tells him, "I know, I know you tried. It wasn't your fault."

He doesn't know what else to say. That much is honest, at least. Carlos knows whose fault it is. If he hadn't asked Nisa about the bloodstones' origins... Though she'd been with the company for years; she should have known better than to ask questions executives didn't approve of, much less care to answer.

 _Like you've been doing?_ Carlos asks himself. He hasn't been working for Strex as long, but he knows that much. This might as well be an object lesson for him.

But he's a scientist, as much as Nisa is. Was. And a scientist is curious. A scientist is...so many things that the company executives wouldn't approve of. The question he should be asking himself isn't why he's risking so much now; it's why he wasn't before. Why none of them did...asking only the approved questions, ignoring the rest, and for what? A bonus? A shot at promotion? A better assignment, with better pills to match?

Carlos's head is throbbing dully, a hangover, not from the couple of drinks he nursed but the ASAP regimen wearing off. An internal clock in the back of his mind is already counting the hours until his breakfast dose, and his stomach turns again to realize that impatient expectation.

Do the company's work, take the company's pills, listen to the company's radio. While a colleague of his, a woman he knows and likes, might have lost her family, might have lost vital parts of herself, so much that she won't have enough left to comprehend what's missing.

He remembers his supervisor Giselle, last month, assuring them that all retrained employees achieve maximum job satisfaction. _A guarantee of the procedure._ But Nisa hadn't wanted that satisfaction, not then, or now.

No more than Carlos himself does.

There's something terrifying about this realization. Something glorious and important. Like waking from a dream—from a nightmare—and remembering...

...Remembering nothing. No new memories blossom in his mind. Just the hazy awareness of the hospital, best forgotten. The doctors with their tests and questions, the painful months of recovery. Just thinking about it makes it feel like a steel band has been wrapped around his skull, an unseen screw turning it tighter with every detail he retrieves.

Coincidence? Post-traumatic stress? Or a conditioned response? He recalls the many, many times the doctors—Tithoes, Talbot, others—told him not to think about it. Told him not to dwell, to move on. To get back to work, like a good employee...and he did, he had, because it was easier, more efficient, less painful. He hadn't even questioned it—why hadn't he questioned it?

"—Carlos?"

Carlos lifts his hands, pressed over his aching eyes, to see Dana hovering—metaphorically—over him, her face drawn with concern. Beside her, Fritz slumps on the bench, head between his knees; he probably wouldn't notice even if the woman from Night Vale were physically present.

"I thought you were going to call for me, when you left the bar," Dana says. "Are you all right?"

"I'm okay," Carlos says, automatically over the pounding of his head, and the knot of guilt in his throat. It's late enough Cecil might already be broadcasting. If he's able to broadcast at all. "Sorry, I haven't had a chance to listen to the radio yet—" 

"Whah?" Fritz pulls his head up. "Where's the radio?"

"Nothing," Carlos tells him. "Look, here's the shuttle; can you get home from here on your own?"

Fritz rubs his face, blinking owlishly as the shuttle pulls up to the stop, electric motor humming. "Yeah, sure. But you—"

"It's a nice night; I'm going to walk back," Carlos says, standing to pull Fritz upright and steady him. Then he hesitates, before pulling away murmurs in his ear, "Fritz, I'm sorry about Nisa."

Fritz, swaying gently on his feet like seaweed in a current, blinks at Carlos again, then at the shuttle waiting behind him. Then says, with a slow deliberate emphasis, "Why? She's still employed. Still serving the company. Better employee than ever now. She won't get distracted anymore. Right?"

"...Right," Carlos says, and doesn't comment on Fritz's swollen eyes and red nose. That could just be the alcohol, after all.

"See you around," Fritz says as he staggers onto the shuttle, and Carlos replies, "See you," as if they both don't know how unlikely that is.

"Was that a friend of yours?" Dana asks as they head out from the station, but Carlos doesn't dare answer. Not with the shuttle humming down the street, and streetlights and passing headlights casting him in glaring white visibility. He walks on the edge of the sidewalk, as deep into the private shadows as he can manage, while Dana keeps pace at his side.

The darkness and the cool night breeze against his face assuages his migraine, clears his head. Once they're around the block and the thrum of helicopters overhead has faded to a buzz, he slips on the headphones and turns on the radio, listens to the hiss of static and shakes his head. "Nothing," he says, "at least not right now—I'm sorry, I'd have listened sooner, if I could have..."

"That's all right," Dana says, but Carlos can't tell if she means it. She falls silent, and Carlos wonders if it's out of concern for Cecil. Or is Dana becoming suspicious of him? How much did she overhear of what he talked about with Fritz? Does she know that he was worrying about Strex employees, when Cecil might have been broadcasting—when anything could be happening in Night Vale, but Carlos is in Desert Bluffs, and maybe Dana will realize that's where he belongs after all...

He's debating what to say, whether he could say anything, when the hissing in his ears breaks into a crackle. Then the voice comes over the airwaves like water flooding over a levee, _"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, who is to say that it does not scream a defiant 'I Was Here' to the uncaring universe? Welcome to Night Vale..."_

Carlos's gasp of relief sucks all the air from his lungs. Dana understands instantly, and there's no hint of doubt in her grin as she meets his eyes. "Cecil's okay!"

Carlos unhooks the headphones from his ear, turns up the volume and holds them out so she can listen too, as Cecil continues, _"Listeners, I apologize for last night's broadcast. It was terribly unprofessional. Technically radio is not my profession now, as the only compensation I receive for these broadcasts are intimidation and arrest warrants, and such has not been legal tender in Night Vale since the 1950s. However, under such circumstances I owe it to my community to maintain the accustomed standards, and I regret that I so badly failed to meet them._

_"And to my listener—the one listener at least who is still out there, or was as of last night, the listener at the other end of that unlisted number from which I received the texts that woke me, just in time to escape to safety—to that listener, I can only say, thank you._

_"I wish I had more than simple words to express to you what it meant to me, to know that someone is still out there, that someone is still listening. That someone still cares. I do not know who you are, listener; I do not know you as anything more than a few words on my phone's screen—words I will not be able to read again, as the others insisted I dispose of that phone, as I had told them I'd done months ago._

_"But I do not need to know who you are to care about you. To tell you that you matter to me—that what you said mattered, as much as anything I've ever said to you over the radio. The only thing that makes the words I say mean anything is ears to hear them, is a person to listen to them, to transmute them into more than mere noise by the alchemy of comprehension. I hope with all my heart that you are listening still, that you can hear and understand these thanks, inconsequentially small words though they are."_

Carlos feels a cool draft against his hand, subtly different from the breeze. He starts, looks down to see Dana's hand passing through his, fingers curled as if to hold his. He wraps his own hand around her insubstantial grasp, as on the radio Cecil continues, _"Listeners—all my listeners, whoever remains out there in the dark, ears pressed to your forbidden radios—you are not alone. However much it may feel that you are, when you think about where you are now, when you think about what you have lost—if you can hear me now, then you have not lost everything. Then we have not lost everything. You and I are part of Night Vale, regardless of where you are now, or what or who you have been told you are._

_"We are still existing, together, and that shared existence makes a community that itself exists, and will keep existing as long as we do, no matter how many greater metropolitan areas incorporate it. And existence, as a very smart and beautiful and heroic man once told me—existence is—"_

"—is the most thrilling fact of all," Carlos says, speaking along with Cecil, word for word. He didn't mean to, hardly realizes he'd done so until he sees Dana cock her head at him in curious inquiry.

Carlos shakes his own head, bemused. "It's just...it's something I used to say..." A long time ago, it must be. Maybe when he was an undergrad? Or else back in grade school, first realizing that science wasn't about memorizing answers but asking questions. That being a scientist didn't mean that you were right all the time, but rather was about striving to be, to the best of one's ability, in the face of all the irrational, inconstant impulses of human nature.

On the radio, Cecil has started talking about the dog park again. Carlos is speaking over him before he can reconsider. "Dana, I'm still going to help you, but there's a new problem. A colleague—no. A friend of mine is in trouble. It may be too late to save her, but—"

"But you have to try," Dana says, nodding.

"She's a Strex employee," Carlos says, to be clear.

"So are you," Dana points out.

"Supposedly," Carlos says. "Though I don't actually recall signing their contract. It's possible that I never did."

"Possible...?" Dana's whole face brightens like the stars hidden behind Desert Bluff's velvet sky. "So you've remembered Night Vale? Or Cecil?"

"Not yet, no," Carlos says. "But I've remembered something else almost as important."

"Oh?"

"I've remembered who I am," Carlos says. His head is aching again, and he knows what happened to Nisa, knows in precise detail how dangerous it is to be, not Carlos the loyal company researcher, not Carlos the obedient Employee of the Month, but Carlos the scientist. 

He knows all of this, but it still feels like the most right thing he's said in a long, long time.


	17. Chapter 17

Carlos lasts until nearly ten AM.

He starts out with the best intentions. Last night, after Cecil wished his listeners good night and safely signed off, Carlos had fallen immediately to sleep, as restfully as if he were taking his sedative regimen again. He'd had a dream about house-hunting—not an activity he'd ever had the chance to do before, and he hadn't been aware it required so much live ammunition, or sacrificial moths.

In the dream he was not alone in his hunt—he was looking with someone, looking to find a house with someone. To make a home with someone, and though he never sees his dream-companion's face, Carlos wakes to the memory of his laugh, low and rich and so deep his toes curl, _"Of course we have to sign this one in blood, Carlos; it's an official city form, after all..."_

He wakes up before the good-morning buzzer goes off, and for a moment as he lies in bed in the windowless dark, he imagines there is someone lying next to him, a warm body breathing slow and even, if he just reached out his hand—

Then the buzzer sounds and Carlos jerks fully awake. The lights come on, piercing bright; he squints against them as he gets up and gets dressed for the day. His head is throbbing dully, as usual. But this morning, after he's grabbed a cup of coffee and the morning's dose from the dorm cafeteria, he stops before he swallows the little green pill. Looks at the plastic sachet sitting in his palm, then rips it open and pockets it, pill intact.

After skipping so many nighttime doses, he's practiced at the motion. Still, it's a more blatant lapse than hiding from the cameras in his room, and the adrenaline of anxiety keeps him alert for the shuttle ride to the facility.

Once in the relative safety of his lab, however, the exhaustion and headache return, doubled by the delay. The coffee doesn't make a dent in it. He got barely five hours of sleep last night, less the nights before, and fatigue settles over him like a blanket, suffocating. He uses his tablet, trying out the new login he bought last night; but it's hard to move through the exhaustion, let alone think. 

The ASAP regimen is designed to foster maximum efficiency. But nothing in the doses specifies what this efficiency is dedicated toward. Just because he's taking the company's stimulants doesn't mean he has to do the company's work. And he needs to think effectively now.

So Carlos tells himself, as he slips the pill out of its plastic in his pocket, and pops it into his mouth under the pretext of covering a yawn. 

Then nearly chokes on it, when Dana appears before him. "Carlos! Good morning—is it morning yet? It's quite dark on the mountain, we—I mean, I can see the blinking light clearly..."

"Quarter to ten, here," Carlos tells her, around a cough to force the pill down the right pipe. "I was going to call you—I may have something."

"Oh! Some new science about the oranges?"

"...No," Carlos confesses, with a guilty glance at the orange in its plexiglas box. "Not yet."

But Dana isn't discouraged. "Then you've found a way to rescue your friend?"

"Possibly..."

"What is it?"

Carlos rubs his face, willing the stimulant to kick in faster. "I'm still working on the orange as well; I swear I haven't forgotten my promise to help you."

"I know," Dana says, more patiently than she should. "But I'm doing all right at the moment, and so is Cecil, last we heard, and your friend needs help now, right? So of course you have to help her—that's your job, isn't it?"

Carlos blinks at her. "Is it?"

"According to everything Cecil says."

"...Are you sure he wasn't talking about a hero? Because I'm not that—not a hero." This much, at least, he's sure of. "I'm a scientist."

Dana gives him a puzzled look. "There's a difference?"

Carlos coughs again, though there's no pill stuck in his throat now, and reaches for his tablet. "I, um, ahem—so I've used the new employee login to access personnel records, and I've found where Nisa—my friend—is currently appointed. It seems she's still in Desert Bluffs."

"That's good!"

Carlos shakes his head. "Not exactly. She's at the Institute for Employee Advancement."

"And you don't know where that is?"

"Everyone knows where the Institute is—you've seen it yourself; it's the rectangular building across the street from this facility, behind the three-meter electric fence."

Dana thinks. "That squat gray edifice that looks like an oversized concrete block?"

"That's it; though the majority of the Institute supposedly is underground. I wouldn't know, however, which is the problem—I've never been inside; you need alpha-level permissions just to pass the fence gate, and I'm only delta. Unless you're a company executive, you can only enter if you're specifically selected for retraining." Which did give him an increasing chance of entering; but less likely odds of him helping Nisa in the doing...

Dana is frowning. "So that's where retraining is done?"

"The initial stages, and some of the follow-up, along with more extensive on-the-job instruction. The Institute is where employees get the guidance and attention they need to become fully productive members of the Strex team," Carlos reads off the bio on the Institute's Twitter page.

He thinks of what Fritz told him last night about retraining, about what is lost, and shudders.

Dana leans over his shoulder to look at the webpage. "So are only employees held there? Or do they have other people, too?"

"What other people?" Carlos asks. "Everyone in Desert Bluffs is an employee."

"Oh, yes, right...though they're calling Night Vale part of the Desert Bluffs area now, aren't they."

"I suppose so, yes." Carlos wonders who Dana is thinking about. Even if Cecil is managing, there must be other people in Night Vale she is worried about. She mentioned a family before, didn't she? A mother and a brother, he thinks. "I can try looking up anyone you know, if you give me their names?"

Dana hesitates, then shakes her head. "No—thank you, but I don't think it's a good idea, to type anybody's name into a Strex computer. Even if no one here knows them now, after that the computer would."

She has a point. But his fake employee account doesn't have the permissions to access the Institute's rosters, much less what's happening to them behind those concrete walls. And it's not as if anyone uninvited can walk in past alpha-level security to witness it personally.

...Or at least, _he_ can't. He can almost feel his neurons re-engaging, his thoughts switching into higher gear. Carlos clears his throat. "Dana, if there were a way for you to help..."

Dana doesn't even let him finish. "What can I do?"

 

* * *

 

After everything Carlos has witnessed at Strex, to say nothing of all he might have seen in Night Vale that he's now forgotten, this shouldn't bother him. But there's something unshakably awkward about having a young woman accompany him into the men's restroom, even if she is imperceptible.

Dana doesn't seem to notice, following him in without hesitation, even when the door swings shut upon her and she has to walk through it. There are a couple men at the urinals, but she's no more embarrassed than they are. At least she stays outside the stall Carlos enters, to let him know when the others have departed.

Once the coast is clear, Carlos emerges. There is one other man left in the restroom, in gray janitor's scrubs, dutifully polishing the mirrors. He hums tunelessly as he works, his rag moving in perfect circles over the glass. 

"Dr. Blanchard?" Carlos asks, but of course there's no response. Blanchard continues his cleaning, as oblivious to Carlos's physical presence as he is to Dana's incorporeality.

He doesn't stop until Carlos takes the rag out of his hand. Then he quits humming and lets his arms fall to his sides, turning from the mirror to face Carlos. His empty blue eyes stare over Carlos's shoulder as he waits for instruction, for his next job.

 _Retraining guarantees maximum job satisfaction._ Carlos swallows. "I'm sorry to interrupt your work, Dr. Blanchard. You can get back to it in a second, I just need to," and he reaches out, unzips Blanchard's gray jumpsuit. The man stands motionless, not protesting, as if he's a life-sized doll.

He's dressed in a yellow T-shirt and jeans underneath the scrubs. Carlos shakes out the small white seed tucked into his lab coat's sleeve, and sticks it in the pocket of Blanchard's jeans. Then he zips up the jumpsuit again, and puts the cleaning cloth back in the man's callused hands. Blanchard turns again to the mirror and continues to polish exactly where he left off, his satisfied humming resuming.

Carlos doesn't realize he's moved until he finds himself in the hallway outside the bathroom, doubled over and breathing in gulps, swallowing air to force back the bile risen in his throat.

"Carlos?" Dana asks beside him.

Carlos puts his hand to the wall, pushes himself upright. "It's done. And it should work. Dr. Blanchard is brought back to the Institute for retraining validation once a week; his next session should be scheduled for this afternoon. Provided they don't change his clothes, he'll enter the Institute with that orange pip in his pocket. Which means that you'll be able to follow him inside. You won't have much of a range, of course; if you get too far from the pip you'll return to the desert as usual—but hopefully you'll observe something helpful. The name of a retrainer, an aspect of the process—any information will help. Knowing something is always better than knowing nothing, if not as good as knowing everything—" It's not the time or place to babble, not out in the hall where anyone could come by; but once he starts speaking it's hard to stop. Every word is one more remove from Dr. Blanchard's blank blue-eyed silence.

He'd already explained all of this to Dana, just minutes ago, and she's more than intelligent enough to have gotten it the first time; but she lets him talk now. When Carlos finally manages to shut up, she only asks, quietly, "So that Dr. Blanchard was retrained?"

Carlos nods, jaw clamped down on his restless tongue.

Dana looks pensive. "I understand better now. I suppose I should've realized it wouldn't be as helpful as the Secret Police's re-education, without bloodstones, or the City Council's mandates, but...I'll find something, Carlos. Whatever knowledge you need to help your friend, I'll find it."

"Thank you," Carlos dares unseal his lips to say.

As they return to his lab, Dana asks, "So how many pips have you managed to get out of that orange?"

"Only the two so far," Carlos says, patting his lab coat's pocket with the first orange seed, the reason she can accompany him out of the lab. "I've lost three others in extraction attempts. Now, be careful in the Institute—if anyone else should get hold of that pip, they'll possibly be able to see you. You can touch it yourself, but only for a limited time, so if anybody happens to find it, don't take any risks, just disappear—"

"Carlos!" Dana says, a startled hiss, his only warning as he enters his lab.

He snaps his mouth shut, as the man before his desk turns to the door and smiles. "Disappear, you say?" Johnny Peterson asks. 

"John?" Dana says, and though Carlos can't see her face, her voice is confused. "How did you get..." and then she trails off.

Before Carlos can wonder how she recognizes the executive, Peterson says, as warmly as ever, "Hello, Carlos. Since I was in the building anyway, I thought I'd drop by. I was surprised to find you out; where were you?"

Carlos gulps around the lump sticking in his suddenly dry throat. "The restroom. Sorry. Umm. Hello. What are...is there anything I can help you with?"

"Oh, I'm not here on business, especially." Peterson ambles to the lab counter, runs an idle hand over the plexiglas case holding the orange. "I'm on my lunchbreak, and was wondering if you'd like to join me? My treat. Unless you're too busy here, of course."

Carlos keeps his eyes forward, not glancing at Dana. Of anyone, he thinks, Peterson might notice Carlos reacting to her. The executive always watches him so closely. Even now, though he has one hand on Carlos's current project, his eyes are fixed on Carlos himself.

"Carlos," Dana says, quietly by his ear, "I have to go—I ought to follow Dr. Blanchard, so I don't miss my chance. But are you going to be all right here?"

"Fine," Carlos says, meeting Peterson's eyes. "I'll be—that'll be fine. Having lunch with you."

"Great!" Peterson exclaims, as if there was any doubt of an employee turning down an executive's request. In his peripheral vision Carlos sees Dana give him an encouraging thumbs' up and disappear, as Peterson continues, "I have a reservation in fifteen minutes, at one of my favorite restaurants in the area—I made it for two," and he winks at Carlos. "It's just down the street; shall we?"

So Carlos follows the executive out of the lab. In the elevator down to the lobby, Peterson asks casually, "So, have you heard from Kevin lately?"

"I've heard him. On the radio," Carlos says, trying to match the tone of friendly small talk. His shoulders are stiff under his lab coat.

"I thought as much." Peterson shakes his head with a sigh. "I've told Kevin to just call you. What's the worst that could happen? You _could_ say no—but you wouldn't. You're a scientist, after all; you were hired for your superior intelligence. But that Kevin, he's surprising...surprisingly shy. Given his line of work."

Such shyness hadn't stopped him from claiming Carlos had asked him out on public radio—but Carlos stops the protest, instead says, "He has called me before."

"And that's something, but..." They're passing through the lobby's security exit, and Peterson turns back to Carlos, says, "You would say yes, wouldn't you? If Kevin asked you out."

The eyes of the exit guards, politely averted from the executive presence, are suddenly riveted on Carlos. There are other employees named Kevin—but only one an executive would likely be talking about. It makes Carlos's face go hot, even as his hands turn ice-cold. "I—I—" he stammers.

"Or you could just do that! Kevin would be flattered, I'm sure." Peterson smiles, gently teasing, and only to Carlos, as if those other employees are no more perceptible than Dana. "I see you haven't changed your mind about him."

Carlos bites his tongue and marches through the final scanner. Outside, the sun is blinding bright, and the asphalt's heat soaks through the soles of his shoes. It feels familiar—of course it feels familiar; he's been in Desert Bluffs for more than three months. "Why?" he asks Peterson as they head down the block. "Why do you care how I feel about Kevin?"

Peterson gives him an odd look—still a friendly smile, but sharp eyes. Not offended or angry, but curious; and Carlos swallows, says, "Do you _want_ me to change my mind? Because I thought you hadn't changed your mind. About me. If that's why you're asking—"

"Oh, no," Peterson says. "Not at all! Kevin's my friend, that's all. And you are too, of course, and I think you'd be good together. You'd make a marvelous couple. Very effective. Not that it's any of my business, since I'm not actually a supervisor over either of you. —And here we are."

The restaurant has no sign, and its front is one-way glass, only a wall of mirrors on the outside, reflecting back the street and sun. The door is difficult to distinguish from the windows, but Peterson leads Carlos to it unerringly, opening it with a push of his hand.

Inside is air conditioned, dark after the sunlight. By the time Carlos's vision adjusts to the dim fluorescents, the yellow-suited maitre d' is escorting them through a grid of narrow aisles to a table for two in the furthest back. The decor is spare and stark for an executive's establishment, the tables and chairs of geometric, utilitarian metal and the floor bare concrete, polished to a granite-like finish.

The restaurant is also empty, Carlos realizes; though there is a setting at every seat, none of the chairs precisely placed before the perfectly square tables are occupied. The only people in the establishment are Carlos and Peterson, the maitre d', and three waiters in crisp black and white. Their steely gazes, a match to the furnishings, remind Carlos of a supervisor's—an alternate model, perhaps.

Carlos's heart is pounding in his ears. At the screech of metal, he jumps—but it's just one of the waiters, pulling out one of the chairs.

"Take a seat, Carlos," Peterson says, and Carlos doesn't know if it's better or worse, that the executive's friendly smile doesn't change under the sallow lights.

There is a waiter on either side of Carlos, and the maitre d' behind him. Carlos sits.

The chair is surprisingly comfortable, the metal molded to optimal ergonomics. Peterson sits in the chair opposite, turns to the waiter hovering at his shoulder and says, "The herb-crusted roast, with gazpacho, and the balsamic extraction on the salad. And ice water—or would you care for a glass of wine, Carlos? No? Two waters, then."

Two of the waiters nod and depart. The third remains standing beside Carlos. He's a large man, considerably taller and broader than Carlos, the musculature of his shoulders straining the lines of his white shirt.

"Here's the thing, Carlos," Peterson says, and though his tone is still light, it's firmer, fixed like his gaze on Carlos. "I happened to be chatting with a mutual acquaintance of ours yesterday, and she mentioned something...interesting."

There is a drain on the floor, Carlos realizes, a round metal drain set in the concrete in the middle of the restaurant. Under the table, Carlos's hands grip his own legs so tightly he can feel his nails through his slacks' khaki, digging into his thighs. "I," he stutters, "That's—I—" Did they capture Kylie the bartender last night, after she sold him the login? Or has she been reporting to Peterson all along?

"I admit, I was surprised," Peterson continues. One of the other waiters returns with a metal pitcher, pours ice water into their stemmed crystal glasses, as the executive says, "I wouldn't have expected Giselle to take such initiative. Flexibility isn't an expected trait in a mid-level supervisor."

Carlos's caught breath bursts out in a confused gasp. "Giselle?"

Peterson picks up his glass, sips water. His eyes over the crystal are sharp like the fractured edge of a bloodstone. "Tell me, Carlos, how are your experiments with the orange going? And not what you've been putting in your End-of-Day reports—your real experiments. Have you successfully weaponized the citrus?"

It takes Carlos a moment to think through the rushing roar of panic in his head, to remember the lies he told his supervisor. He's barely given them a thought in the past few days, busy with the radio and Cecil, his only work with the orange being the research promised to Dana.

Peterson's fingers are tapping the side of his glass impatiently. "Not—not yet," Carlos says.

"How close?" and Peterson's tone is calm, but his fingers keep tapping.

Carlos makes himself take a breath. The interrogation's timing is unexpected but he's prepared for it. Has practiced, as diligently as for any thesis defense, whispering words into his pillow at night. Once he begins they come easily now, confidently, he hopes. "Nearly there—I've almost got it. I've managed to temporarily contain the vesicle extract of the hesperidium sample's endocarp via a hyperpolarized membrane derived from the albedo, so it should simply be a matter of reversing the polarity to disseminate the transformational agent."

It's a risk, but a calculated one; Peterson may be an executive but he's not in R&D, and not a scientist. He may know marketing jargon, but not botanical technobabble. But an executive isn't about to admit ignorance to a regular employee. Peterson frowns for a split-second of confusion, then says smoothly, "Great, that's great. So, if you're that close, you should be able to give a demonstration of your work."

"A—a demonstration?"

"For me, and a couple of other interested parties. Later this afternoon, perhaps? I want to establish—" but before Peterson can finish, he's interrupted by the return of the third waiter.

The man has no tray or dishes to serve, however; he only holds a telephone receiver, on a long cord that snakes through the metal-legged tables as he brings it to Peterson.

"What is it?" the executive snaps into the receiver. No trace of his friendly smile remains on his lips. "I told you, I had a private—what?" His expression changes again, mouth flattening into a rigid, unreadable composure. "Repeat that—what do you mean, gone? How can she—that's not—no. No, I'm only a block away, I'll be right over there, just don't—Right. Yes."

Peterson hands the receiver back to the waiter, turns back to Carlos and smiles, but for the first time that Carlos can recall since meeting him, the smile isn't up to the handbook's ten-point standards; it's the shallow, forced grimace of an unmotivated employee. "I'm afraid I have to cut our lunch short," the executive says. "Please stay, enjoy the food. If there's anything you want, ask Julius here," and he nods up at the waiter looming beside Carlos. "When you're done, he'll see you back to the facility."

"I can remember the way," Carlos begins, but Peterson ignores him. He motions for the waiter Julius to lean down, whispers to him an instruction Carlos can't make out. Then the executive gives a hasty goodbye and departs, gone before Carlos can return the farewell.

 

* * *

 

Given his escort, Carlos doesn't have much choice but to have lunch. The food is as surprisingly delicious as the chair is comfortable, gourmet cuisine suited to an executive palate, though Carlos cannot identify the meat of the roast. He can barely eat anyway, too nervous to do more than pick at the food; but he tries to make a show of enjoying it. He can't tell if he fools the waiters; they remain mute throughout his meal, but attentive, refilling his water glass before it's half empty and whisking away plates as soon as he pushes them aside, keeping the table's polished surface clean and clear.

When he finishes, the waiter Julius—who has not helped serve or remove a single dish, but remained by Carlos's chair the entire time he ate—walks behind him to the door and then out into the sun, his shadow looming over Carlos all the way back to the facility. The security guards wave the waiter through the entry checkpoint as if he's expected. He accompanies Carlos in the elevator, and finally stops outside the laboratory door to let Carlos enter alone. Carlos isn't sure if Julius intends to go back to the restaurant, or if he just lacks the permissions to enter the lab.

Either way he's relieved. As soon as the lab door closes over the man's shadow, Carlos finds himself gasping, drowning in the panic he's barely been holding back. It takes him a couple of minutes to collect himself. Then he goes to the orange, takes out his tablet and starts scrolling through the results. Whatever interrupted Johnny Peterson's questions, he can't count on it to last; sooner or later the executive will come demanding his demonstration.

A couple hours later, Carlos hears the alert on his laptop, marking Dana's return. He doesn't immediately raise his head from the sliver of orange peel he's preparing; it's a delicate procedure. He does say, "Welcome back; how did it go? Did you successfully enter the Institute?"

When there is no answer, Carlos looks up. Dana is panting for breath, a sheen of sweat over her dark complexion and her kerchief dragged down around her neck, releasing her cloud of hair. Carlos drops his equipment to rush to her side. "Are you all right? What happened?" He reaches for her, but of course his hands slide through her arms. 

Dana gives him a smile, half gratitude, half sympathy for the ineffectiveness she's experienced so much herself. "I'm okay," she says. "It went well—very well, I would say, if I didn't want to tempt fate, which I don't, so I won't. But I have some information, and I may be able to get more—what about you, though? I was worried about that man; he was an executive, wasn't he?"

"Yes, Johnny Peterson, you know, the marketing VP," Carlos says. "You've met him?"

Dana shakes her head. "Not really. No. He just...reminded me of someone I knew. He's another friend of yours, here in Strex?"

"Not exactly," Carlos says reluctantly. He can't help but wonder what Dana might have seen, might have noticed. Could she have guessed his first meeting with the executive—the party, the press of Peterson's body against Carlos's, his lips against Carlos's. Losing himself in those drugged sensations.

Though it's hazy in his memory, as if it happened years ago; a college hookup, instead of only a couple of months prior. But then, he was as different a person then as he was as a teenager. More different, he can hope. "He learned what I'm doing with the orange—what I'm supposedly doing. He wants a demonstration of its potential as a weapon; I'm trying to get something together to show him now. What I have in mind, it might help you, too—but that can wait. What'd you find out at the Institute? What happened?"

Dana tells him about following the former Dr. Blanchard as he was escorted back to the Institute for Employee Advancement, passing through the gate of the electric fence and entering the building. The security measures she describes are no more than Carlos was expecting; but no less, either.

"I didn't see that much inside," Dana says. "They brought Dr. Blanchard to a room with nothing in it but a chair, like a dentist's chair. There was a spotlight on the chair, and cameras and microphones focused on it. And one wall of the chamber was a one-way mirror, so I walked through it to the shadowed room on the other side, and saw these people, other employees. They wore white coats like yours, but I don't think they were really scientists. Not like you're a scientist. I couldn't understand most of their discussion, but one of them showed a badge at one point, like an ID tag, only with no name, just a number."

"An employee ID number," Carlos says. "A few older employees have them, if they don't have an S-chip implanted for some reason. I don't suppose you remember any of the number? It might tell me what department they were with."

"Oh, I remember all of it," Dana says, then looks surprised by Carlos's surprise. "I got a good long look at it, at least three seconds, and it was only a dozen digits."

"You memorized a twelve-digit number in three seconds?"

"Of course. Couldn't you? Didn't you have to memorize your locker combinations in high school? Ours changed daily, for security, and you had to learn the new ones quickly; it's not like you'd have time to check it whenever you needed to get a book or your lunch out of your locker. And you didn't want to be caught outside class when the bell rang, not with the hall monitors...those talons, and the tongues..." Dana shudders.

Carlos blinks, then reaches for his tablet. "What's the number?"

The ID brings up the employee record of one Gregory Talbot, MD, Senior Employee Reorientation Director. Carlos frowns at the picture on file. "That can't be right..."

Dana leans over to take a look herself. "Yes, that's the man I saw."

"You're sure?" Carlos stares down at the photo, the ruddy-faced man grimacing at the camera, barely attempting two out of the ten points of a proper smile. He scrolls through the record, but there's no mention of a recent transfer.

He knows the man in the photograph. Remembers his face, remembers his name—Dr. Tithoes had mentioned it only yesterday. "That's Dr. Talbot," Carlos says. "The doctor in charge of my rehabilitation therapy at the hospital." The hospital that was supposedly states away; but Talbot had only been assigned to Desert Bluffs in the past two years.

Carlos's head aches, not the dull pressure of stimulant withdrawal, but the stabbing pain that's become his familiar companion whenever he tries to think about the hospital. Whenever he tries to remember the last year. He rubs his temples with one hand, keeps his eyes fixed on the tablet's screen. "So they were lying. I wonder if I was ever in Washington at all." Most likely not. There wouldn't have been time, if Dana is right, if he only left Night Vale four months ago. If his real memories begin at his Desert Bluffs orientation, then there's only a lost month to account for.

Only a month in Desert Bluffs. And more than a year before that, of which Carlos cannot recall a single detail. A year he moved out to a desert town which can't be found on a map, and embarked on some manner of unknown research, and was injured seriously enough to scar his chest, and started dating a man with an incredible voice and a face he doesn't remember.

Maybe the pain's not a conditioned response after all; that list's enough to give any rational person a headache.

Overhead, the laboratory's lights flicker; or maybe he just blinked. Carlos shakes his head, brings himself back to the current problem. "So you didn't see Nisa anywhere in the Institute? Or anyone you know from Night Vale?"

Dana pauses a second before answering, distracted by the brownout, or else something back in the alternate dimension housing her corporeal form. Then she nods. "Yes—no—I didn't. I didn't see anyone I recognized."

Carlos sighs. "It was a long shot. But knowing Talbot's there is something, anyway."

"I might be able to learn more, if I go back," Dana says.

"You can't. Dr. Blanchard has certainly left the Institute by now, and even if I can extract another orange pip, he won't be brought in for a week."

"But I don't need a new pip to go back to the Institute," Dana says. "Since the old one is still there." 

"What?"

"When Dr. Blanchard was in the chair, I managed to get the seed out of his pocket," Dana explains. "None of the scientists noticed; they were too busy trying to figure out why their cameras weren't properly working. I couldn't move the pip very far, but I managed to wedge it behind an air vent in the room, where it shouldn't get mopped up. So I can go back there at any time. I don't know how helpful it'll be, since I can't go any further than those two rooms, and there may not be anyone there most of the time; but I thought it might help."

"Help?" Carlos stares at her. "That's amazing. Dana, you're a genius!"

Dana's smile hits none of the ten points, and is beautiful for missing them. "Thank you! That's very kind of you to say."

"Not kind," Carlos denies. "True. Scientists try to be. You'll need to be careful, though; if the scientists there have better luck identifying the cause of the surveillance interference, they may deduce your presence—"

He stops when the lights flicker again, going dark just long enough for him to be sure he didn't imagine it. Carlos frowns up at the glowing fluorescents. In the three months he recalls being in Desert Bluffs, there has never been a power outage. Has Dana's effect on local electronics somehow been aggravated—interacting with the second orange pip, perhaps?

Before he can come up with a way to test this, the laboratory door slides open, and Julius, the hulking waiter in black and white, steps inside. He points at Carlos, says, "You, come with me, now."

"What?" Carlos backs up a step, putting his desk between himself and the larger man, and tries to inject some ASAP-assigned attitude into his voice. "What's this about? What are you still doing here?"

"Mr. Peterson's request," the waiter says. He's not looking at Carlos, instead scanning the lab with his steel gaze. His hand is at his waist, resting on a bulge under his waistcoat that's the wrong shape for a taser.

His eyes slide right over Dana, as she asks Carlos, "Who's this? Do you know him?"

Carlos, unable to answer directly, offers a slight shake of the head, as he asks the man, "What does Peterson—Mr. Peterson want?"

Julius doesn't answer, just shakes his head, beckoning impatiently.

Overhead, the lights blink again, and come back on along with the howl of a siren, echoing through the corridor outside the lab. A mechanically composed voice starts playing over the loudspeakers, repeating, _"This is an emergency drill. All employees please exit this facility immediately. This is an emergency drill. All employees..."_

"I take it this isn't really a drill," Carlos says to the waiter. Julius continues to stay mute and looming with grim insistence. "In that case, should I take any of my project? If the lab is at risk—"

"Mr. Peterson specified you, not your work," the waiter says, closing a massive hand around Carlos's arm. The man's fingers almost completely encircle his bicep. "So move it, now—"

The lights go out. This time they don't come back on, plunging the windowless lab into complete darkness. When Carlos tries to reach for his tablet to make some light, Julius tightens his grip on Carlos's arm until it bruises, holding him in place as the sirens keep sounding, chaotic in the dark.

Then, over those electronic wails, Carlos hears a meaty thud. The hand gripping his arm suddenly lets go, and Carlos jumps back, barking his elbow on his desk, as something large and heavy thumps to the floor before him.

He gropes through the dark for his tablet, but before he locates it emergency lights come on, spreading dull red light like a film of blood over the polished metal surfaces of the lab. Carlos looks down to see Julius, his crisp white shirt rendered crimson by the light, lying on the floor at his feet. 

The huge man is breathing, but motionless. There is a blocky, squarish object beside his head. Carlos crouches to pick it up, and finds it is a heavy, leather-bound edition of Alexandre Dumas's _The Count of Monte Cristo_.

Before he can figure out what to make of this, something slams into his temple. The blow sends Carlos sprawling to the floor, dizzy and dazed, miniature supernovae exploding across his vision.

As he struggles to orient himself upright, a kick to the back of his knee drops him kneeling again. An unseen hand grabs his collar and yanks back his head to put a bar of cold metal against his throat, as a stranger's voice, high-pitched but forceful, demands, "Are you their scientist?"

"Scientist?" Carlos twists his head to look back, blinking back tears and stars to focus through the bloody light. 

There is a girl behind him, holding the knife at his neck, its blunt flat pressing into his trachea. She's stocky but small; he's not too familiar with children, but she doesn't even look fourteen. In the red light her eyes are black—not the void of Kevin's, but the shining obsidian of a bloodstone, a brilliant presence, rather than an absence.

Those dark eyes widen as they meet Carlos's, then narrow with determination. "So it is you," the girl says, jamming her knee into the small of his back to pre-empt his struggling. "You're the one who betrayed us—who told them how to find the bloodstones, and who knows what else. Aren't you?" she demands, and Carlos can't say anything. Can't deny the truth.

The girl's jaw tightens. "But you won't help them again—I'm here to make sure of that," and she turns the blade in her hand, to set its razor edge against his throat.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay, I've been away and/or busy for most of the month - and will be going away again shortly, but hopefully after that I'll have the time to sit down and finish this thing! We're entering the endgame (though there's definitely several more chapters to come!)

Carlos doesn't move. Hardly dares breathe, when the slightest movement presses the girl's blade against his neck. His head is throbbing from the blow and the red glare of the emergency lights; over the wailing sirens he can hear his pulse pounding as clearly as if he has a stethoscope. Beside him lies the hulking body of the supposed waiter Julius, with the book that felled him dropped by his head. The man is still unconscious, unable to help. And Dana is nowhere in sight—not that there's anything she could do anyway, with her immaterial existence.

Carlos should be terrified—he is terrified; he doesn't want to die. And this girl with the knife to his throat could kill him; he can hear it in her voice. She is young but she is so determined, and so angry. _So it is you_ , she said. _You're the one who betrayed us_.

She knows Carlos. Knows him from before—from before all of this. Knows who he was before, in Night Vale. She must have known him, to be this angry. To be this betrayed.

Dana had told him so much, but not like this. She hadn't known him personally, before; she couldn't give him this proof.

He's terrified, but another feeling overwhelms the fear. Carlos swallows, the blade pinching his neck. Works his dry tongue to say, "I'm sorry."

Behind him, the girl freezes, her knife stilled against his throat. "What?"

"What I did—whatever I did—I'm sorry," Carlos says. If he's going to die, he can say this much, at least. Can tell at least one person who might be able to bring his apology back to Night Vale. "I never meant to hurt anyone. I'm so sorry."

The girl is motionless, considering. At last she says, "Are you begging for mercy?"

Carlos has no idea what she wants to hear, so answers honestly. "No—I don't know what I've done, not enough to know if I deserve mercy. But I'm sorry for it."

The knife turns, digging in deeper. Carlos feels a pinch, feels a drop of hot liquid wind down his neck to his shirt's collar. "How can you _not know_?" the girl demands. "Scientists are supposed to know, aren't they? Or do you claim you're _not_ Carlos the Scientist?" He can hear her pronounce the capital letter, like it's a title.

"I don't know if I am or not," Carlos says. "I think I might have been, but I don't remember. I don't remember anything about Night Vale."

"You mean, you forgot us?" The knife doesn't lift from his throat, but she turns it again, the flat instead of the blade cold against his skin. The girl's voice is as cold and flat; he can't tell if she's believing or incredulous. "All of us?"

"Apparently," Carlos says.

"Is that why you're working for Strex now? Because you forgot? Or were you working for them all along?"

"I," Carlos begins, and stops, because he does not know. That he has no clear memory of signing Strex's employee contract is not proof that he didn't sign it. They recruited him, after all; he remembers that much. Two years ago, before he came to Night Vale. Their offer is one of the last memories he's sure is a real experience.

The girl from Night Vale is silent, waiting for his answer. As if she puts stock in what he's saying, whether or not she believes it; the words are important to her, even if he's the one saying them...

"—Carlos!"

That isn't the girl. Carlos glances to his right, as far as his eyes will roll without turning his head, to see Dana in his peripheral vision. "When the lights went off I tried to go out to the hall, to see what was going on," Dana gasps, "but I went too far and ended up back on the mountain, and had to find my way back here—what's going on? Who—" She stops, looking at the girl. "Tamika Flynn?"

"Tamika?" Carlos repeats.

The girl hadn't noticed Dana's presence; but at that name, she twitches, then forces the knife closer to his throat. "You said you didn't know us!"

"I don't," Carlos says, his voice strangled from the pressure of the blade. "I—"

"No, Tamika, don't! Carlos is helping us now!" Dana shouts, but its only effect is to soothe Carlos's conscience; Tamika can't hear her.

Whether or not Tamika believed him, she's made up her mind now; Carlos can tell from the breath she takes, steeling herself. He's horrified, not just fear for his life, but that a girl so young, scarcely a teenager, will be the one to kill him. That he has done such terrible things as to drive a child to murder.

Dana futilely reaches for them, but her hands pass right through. The knife moves against his throat, and Carlos wonders how long it will take. Wonders whether Dana will ever make it back home, and whether Strex will win. Wonders what the girl Tamika will tell everyone back in Night Vale, if she'll mention what he said...

_I'm sorry, Cecil..._

" _Tamika! Stop!_ " Dana cries, and Tamika gasps and leaps backwards, letting Carlos go.

Carlos sits hard on the floor, pressing his hands protectively over his throat. Dana kneels beside him, close enough he can feel the cool draft of her not-quite-presence. She's not looking at him but at Tamika. 

Tamika stares back, crouched low with her weapon raised before her. It's a sharpened letter opener, he can see now, with runes etched into its steel blade.

"Where did you come from?" the girl snaps. "Who are you?"

She's looking right at Dana—Dana, who has her hand in the pocket of Carlos's lab coat, a cold patch against his hip. It's the pocket with the orange pip, Carlos realizes.

So he was correct, that contact with the seed makes her perceptible to those in the vicinity. He's grateful that hypothesis was proven now, and not earlier when she was in the Institute for Employee Advancement. It would have been a serious problem, if she had been seen then.

It might be a problem now, from the way Tamika is narrowing her so-dark eyes. Dana holds up one hand, the other still in Carlos's pocket, as she says, "Tamika, I'm Dana Cardinal, I'm from Night Vale—or I was; at the moment I'm from a geographical loop around a mountain, but—"

"Dana," Tamika repeats, frowning. "Like that intern Cecil talks about? The one who went into the dog park?"

"That's me!" Dana's smile is strained in the red light, but sincere. "I've been trapped in an otherworldly desert, but I'm able to come here—sort of," and she waves her free hand through Carlos's head to demonstrate. "I used to be able to go to Night Vale, too, but not for a while..."

"Most likely because the bloodstones were taken," Carlos says. 

Tamika turns her blade toward him. "Taken because of _your_ science."

"Yes," Carlos confirms. Cautiously he lowers his hands from his throat. There's a little blood spattered on his fingers, crimson turned black by the red emergency lighting; but the shallow wound he can feel has already scabbed over. He's light-headed, but that's apparently psychological stress and a possible concussion, rather than the shock of blood-loss.

"Carlos didn't know," Dana says quickly. "He doesn't remember Night Vale; his memory was erased. Strex tricked him, Tamika. But he's not helping them anymore—he's been helping me instead. That's how I can talk to you, because of Carlos's science. He's our ally now."

"He told us he was that before," Tamika says.

She's implied as much already, but that plain statement hits like a hammer, shattering the last of his uncertainty. "So you did know me—from before, in Night Vale?" Carlos demands. "You met me then? You've talked to me before?"

"Some," Tamika says, watching him warily. She hasn't lowered her knife. "You were helping us—told us you wanted to help us. To help save Night Vale, that's what you said. And Cecil vouched for you, so."

There's so much Carlos wants to ask, but it all pales before that revelation. "You know Cecil, too—you knew us? The two of us, together?"

"How do you know Cecil, if you don't remember Night Vale?"

"I've heard him," Carlos says. "On the radio, late at night. And Dana's told me more. That we used to be dating, before I ended up here in Desert Bluffs."

"Before you came here," Tamika corrects. "It was your plan to come—your mission. You volunteered for it. To help us, you said, only you didn't come back. Then there was that report that you'd died, and Cecil said it had to be true, that you'd die before you'd help Strex defeat us—but he was wrong."

"I didn't know," Carlos says. "That I was helping the company do that—if I'd known..." He trails off. If he had known, if StrexCorp had told him, when they first gave him the bloodstone project, that they were taking stones from citizens of a town he'd never heard of...would he have cared? Removing dangerous, radioactive material from houses—how would he have guessed the harm?

If he remembered Night Vale, what bloodstones meant in Night Vale—but he hadn't. 

But maybe that was why they hadn't told him where the stones came from... 

_"...Please tell us one more time, Carlos—what do you know about Night Vale?"_

If they'd been concerned that the bloodstones might remind him of his lost memories...but why would they mistrust the efficacy of their psychological remodeling, after retraining so many employees before Carlos?

"Strex was using you, Carlos," Dana insists. "They were using him, Tamika—they captured him and took away his memories, to make him help them."

"Is that really what happened?" Tamika asks. Her black eyes on Carlos are as bright and sharp as the blade of her weapon.

"I...don't know," Carlos says. "I can't remember any of that. Until a few days ago, I thought I'd been a company employee for years; that I'd lost memories due to an injury on the job..." He's expecting the pressure that closes around his skull, is almost able to ignore it. He puts his hand to his breastbone. He can't feel the scars through the layers of shirt and labcoat, but they're there.

He wonders if Tamika knows the source of those scars, the real story of that injury.

He has so many questions, but as he opens his mouth to start asking them, full power comes back on, white fluorescents freezing out the red emergency lights. Carlos blinks into them, momentarily blinded, as Tamika snaps a word in a tongue he doesn't recognize—a curse, and probably not age-appropriate, by her tone.

There's the squeak of sneakers and a metal clank off to his right, and simultaneously a groan to his left. Carlos raises a hand to block the light's glare, squinting around his lab.

The waiter _cum_ guard Julius is waking up, as if coming back online with the power, pushing himself up sitting as he rubs his bruised head. The tome which dealt that blow is gone, no longer on the floor where Carlos dropped it. 

The girl who threw the book is also gone. The only people in the lab are Carlos, Julius, and Dana, who meets Carlos's questioning eyes and shakes her head. "So Tamika Flynn is...I've got to—I'm going to look for her, Carlos," she says. "I'll come back, as soon as I can," and Dana vanishes.

"What happened?" Julius demands, climbing to his feet to tower over Carlos.

"I—I have no idea," Carlos stammers. It takes him no effort to sound shaken and confused. He lowers his chin to hide the cut on his throat behind his collar. "The power went out for a moment, and in the darkness I heard a thumping noise. Then I saw you lying on the floor, unconscious. I tried to get help, but the building was briefly on emergency power, and I couldn't get through, or get out of the lab..."

As Carlos speaks, Julius stalks a circuit of the lab, scrutinizing every corner. The scientific equipment, Carlos's desk, the lab cabinets—

The fume hood for handling noxious chemicals, with its metal vent leading into the building's ventilation system. The mouth of the vent is covered with a filter, and though it's wide to provide sufficient air flow, it's not broad enough to accommodate a grown man. But a child, if sufficiently athletic, might be able to scramble up inside it. And from here Carlos can see that the filter is misaligned, though he's certain it was in place when he reviewed his equipment this morning. 

Before Julius reaches the fume hood, Carlos calls out, "Um, excuse me, could you give me a hand with this? I think it was disturbed," and he gestures at the mass spectrometer, which is untouched, as far as he knows.

But Julius doesn't; the man swings around, growls, "What's wrong with it?"

"I'm not sure—it looks like it was moved, I'm sure it was a couple centimeters to the left, before the lights went out."

"A couple centimeters? Seriously?" Julius frowns but lumbers over, grabs the side of the spectrometer and heaves it forward, pulling it away from the wall to reveal nothing.

He squeezes his bulk behind it anyway to touch the wall, but before he completes his examination, he jerks as if he's been pricked by a pin. Standing up, he taps his electronic earpiece, mutters, "Julius here...yeah...yeah, he's here. Safe. No—I didn't see her. But something happened, there was—okay, got it. Be right there, sir."

Ending the communication, Julius folds his thick arms, glowers down at Carlos. "I'll send up some security personnel on my way out, to help you with your equipment and make sure nothing else happens here."

"Yes, thank you," Carlos says. He makes sure to keep his head down and his eyes averted from the fume hood, and Julius leaves the lab without another glance in that direction.

As soon as the doors closed behind the man, Carlos goes to the hood. The vent's filter is wedged improperly between the metal clips, and the layer of dust along the bottom edge is disturbed. Cleared dust outlines the prints of four fingers, too small for an adult's hands.

Carlos adjusts the filter, snapping it back in place, and wipes the dusty edge clean with his sleeve, so there's no sign it was ever touched.

Then he goes to his desk and activates his tablet, so by the time the security team arrives, he's obviously hard at work, the portrait of a diligent employee.

 

* * *

 

Tamika Flynn doesn't return to his lab that day. Neither does Dana.

This is well enough, since Carlos wouldn't be able to talk with either of them anyway. The security team Julius sends up watch Carlos like their lives are depending on it. Carlos wonders what the supposed waiter said to them; even for Strex employees, they're dedicated.

It's exhausting, working under that scrutiny. Pocketing the day's last stimulant dose instead of taking it doesn't help. Still, Carlos does what he can. Johnny Peterson will be wanting his demonstration, and sooner rather than later, Carlos is sure; he has to be prepared. But by the time Carlos finally signs off for the day, he's falling asleep on his feet. Once back at his dorm room he promptly collapses into bed.

Even so tired, however, it's habit by now, to turn on his pocket radio and slip the buds into his ears as he drops his head onto his pillow. So when the static breaks, after midnight, Carlos comes awake to Cecil's voice, welcoming him to the place he still doesn't remember.

 _"You may have heard this afternoon broadcast, from the station that used to be ours,_ " Cecil says. _"If you did not, let me repeat it to you now,_ " and Cecil's voice changes, pitched a little higher, a little lighter. It's not mimicry, still definitely Cecil speaking; but Carlos can hear Kevin's inflection in Cecil's baritone, as he says, _"'We would like to remind all our listeners that Tamika Flynn was, just recently, forcibly accepted into StrexCorp's special Junior Achievers program. She is working hard in this program right now, learning how to be her most perfect self! Therefore, if in the next few days you happen to see a girl who looks like Tamika Flynn, with her stocky build and her improperly black eyes—you are suffering from a hallucination, and should immediately alert your nearest supervisor about this delusion. Tell your supervisor exactly where you saw her and what you saw her doing, so that you may be helped.'"_

Then it's Cecil speaking again, _"Isn't that an interesting report, listeners? It's so helpful of StrexCorp, to be watching out for our mental health like this. And who of us hasn't thought that we might have seen Tamika Flynn—Tamika Flynn, our brave, missing girl, our hero in this town which has no heroes. Tamika Flynn, who StrexCorp took into custody just that little while ago—and wasn't that such a stroke of luck for them, that they found her right then, after searching for so long; that they captured her with so little resistance from her army of highly trained children, that there were no casualties among them, and no other children captured. So lucky, that it all went according to plan. It's funny, isn't it, how sometimes a plan goes so smoothly that it never occurs to you to ask,_ whose _plan is this, actually?_

_"Listeners, I urge you all, do as StrexCorp says—tell your supervisors if you think you see Tamika Flynn. Or, if you think of her without seeing her, better to mention that to your supervisor, just to be sure. We can't be too careful, after all. It would be so helpful, if everyone in Night Vale told our corporate overlords where they might have seen Tamika Flynn. Preferably several times a day, and as many different places as possible. Tamika Flynn might have been under your cot, or in your supervisor's office, or maybe on the radio station roof—why, you might've seen her practically anywhere, and you should definitely tell them so!_

_"But I will tell you this, listeners,"_ and Cecil's voice is low, calm and dark—not comforting, but a threat; the promise of danger and ruin, as he says, _"You may think you see Tamika Flynn, or you may not. But_ they _won't see her, however much they search—not until it's too late."_

In the dark, Carlos touches his throat. The scratch is already mostly healed; he can barely find the scab with his fingertips. 

Carlos doesn't remember Night Vale, doesn't remember Tamika Flynn—but he knows her now, and knows where she is now. As Cecil knows—he can't tell his listeners, not when StrexCorp may be listening as well; but Carlos is certain that Cecil knows that plan, knows how and why Tamika let herself be captured. 

Carlos doesn't remember Cecil, but they share a secret now kept even from most of Night Vale, and that knowledge makes Carlos's heart pound harder than any stimulant dose could.

 

* * *

 

When Carlos arrives at his lab the next morning, there are three people waiting for him.

He's ready for Johnny Peterson. And it's not unexpected to see his supervisor Giselle with the executive, thought she looks even grayer than usual. There's a sickly cast to her iron complexion as she darts Carlos an uneasy look, before turning back to her associates.

The third individual is a man in a yellow pinstriped suit and an opaque golden helm shielding half his face. Carlos doesn't need to see his features to recognize that featureless mask. It looks duller here, under the lab's artificial lights, rather than the bright sunlight of the penthouse office where Carlos saw him before. Huck Aldis, Acquisitions Director. The most senior Strex executive Carlos has ever met.

The bloodstone acquisition project was under his jurisdiction, but not the oranges, as far as Carlos knew; he can't guess why the director would be coming to this demonstration now.

Johnny Peterson smiles as he enters. "Good morning, Carlos!"

"Good morning," Carlos echoes back. He shakes Peterson's hand, then Aldis's, trying not to stare. In the dimmer light Carlos can just barely make out the outlines of the sensory input feeds, through the helm's gold shielding. The director's hand is warm, dry, and gritty; he smells of expensive cologne and, faintly, of the ash which coats his office, the leavings of his experimental work.

"Your shift was due to begin seven minutes ago," Giselle says. The light set in the supervisor's temple is blinking amber, reflecting in Aldis's polished helm. "We've been waiting for you." The words are impatient, but her voice is pitched high, tense.

"Sorry, there was, ah, a delay, with the shuttle," Carlos stammers. He's regretting now not taking his morning dose; waking up was harder than ever this morning, and he needs to be alert for this. He hopes they won't think to check the shuttle schedule, and find the only delay was that he missed the usual shuttle and had to sprint three blocks to catch the next available. 

"No problem," Johnny Peterson says. "Huck only just got an opening this morning," and he nods at the director, "so this meeting only was added to your schedule a bit ago; you must've missed the alert."

"Though for a moment there we thought you might be playing hooky!" Aldis says, and laughs loudly. After a split-second pause, Peterson laughs with him. Giselle makes no sound, but she pulls up her lips into a rictus grin.

"Anyway," Peterson says, "we're here for the demonstration, like we were talking about yesterday. I happened to mention to Huck what you've been up to, weaponizing the oranges, and it sounded so interesting, he wanted to check it out for himself."

"Of course," Carlos says. This, at least, he's ready for. He goes over to the plexiglas box on the counter, the equipment he prepared yesterday beside it. "As I told you, I haven't finalized the distribution method, but I can show you the theory—"

"Wait," Director Aldis says, raising his hand. "Hold on, not yet. And you can put that back."

"This?" Carlos looks down at the Strex Bio-Tester he's taken from its cage, grasping its tail to activate its full simulation capabilities. "But I assumed you wanted a demonstration of the oranges' effectiveness on potential targets...?"

"Oh, definitely, that's what I'm here for," Aldis says. "But we're not all here yet."

Peterson looks momentarily confused. "We're not?"

"I forgot to mention," Aldis says, "but after you gave me the rundown about this private project, it occurred to me that Carlos here might need a little assistance. To give his demonstration the oomph it needs. You know scientists, sometimes they need a hand realizing their genius in a way us regular guys can appreciate. Don't worry, it should be fine, as long as Carlos is as ready as you were insisting he is, Johnny."

"I'm sure he is," Peterson says, widening his smile back to its usual broad proportions. "Great idea, Huck. Sound okay to you, Carlos?"

"Sure," Carlos says, fighting to keep his voice level. Neither his supervisor nor the executives have a substantial scientific education, so he should be able to convince them that he's eliminated any target they choose. But if the assistance Aldis is bringing in includes anyone trained in the higher physics principles he's exploiting, the subterfuge might end here and now. And once they realize he's no longer acting in the company's best interests...

The lab doors slide open, and a pair of blue-uniformed security officers enter, escorting a shorter figure.

"Here we are," Aldis says, and motions at the woman in the gray jumpsuit who stands between the guards. She steps forward, mutely compliant. Her dark eyes are blank, not tracking to the director, and her mouth is a relaxed, slack line.

It takes Carlos a moment to recognize her, with her face cleared of its habitual smile. "Nisa?"

His former colleague doesn't react to her name or his voice, continuing to stare vacantly forward.

It's all Carlos can do to keep his morning coffee down, looking into her emptied face. "I...don't understand. I thought Nisa had been reassigned from R&D and—and retrained."

"She had," Giselle says. Her eyes are steely slits, locked on the ex-scientist.

"Then is she being retrained for labwork?" Carlos asks. "If she's going to assist me now...?"

"You misunderstand me, Carlos," Aldis says. Under the golden helm, the director's smile shows gleaming white teeth. "Nisa isn't here to help you prepare your demonstration. See, my thought was, for an experiment of this magnitude, a simple artificial Bio-Tester won't really do. Might as well be pulling a rabbit out of a hat, doing a test on a little thing like that. What you need, if you're really going to show us your weapon's effectiveness, is an appropriate subject.

"And Nisa here generously volunteered." The man sets his hand on Nisa's shoulder, still smiling. She doesn't smile back at the executive, doesn't look at him, or even seem to realize he's there. "After the trouble she caused before, researching what she shouldn't have, all she wants now is to be useful to the company. Isn't that right, my dear?"

Aldis's hand tightens around the woman's shoulder, and Nisa nods once, obedient and insensible, her eyes remaining fixed on an unseen point before her as her head bobs up and down.

"So," Aldis says, "all you have to do now to prove your worth to Strex, is show us how effectively you can reduce this helpful, willing subject to her component atoms. That won't be a problem for you, will it, Carlos?"


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So," Director Aldis says, "all you have to do now to prove your worth to Strex, is show us how effectively you can reduce this helpful, willing subject to her component atoms. That won't be a problem for you, will it, Carlos?"

For a second Carlos can't think, can't make sense of what he's being told to do. To willfully destroy a living subject—a human subject—for the sake of the company, for something so meaningless as wealth or power—even in the theoretical, it's unconscionable; and Nisa is a friend, not an academic exercise, not an abstract question of ethics. The Strex executives can't seriously expect him to...

But of course they can, because he knows what will happen if he does not. The cost of failure is standing before him, in the shape of a friend who exists now in body only.

Aldis is waiting for his answer, gold helmet cocked in an attitude of polite interest. Beside the director, Johnny Peterson is smiling still, but there's a hint of strain in his pulled-back lips. Even that tiny sign is striking; Carlos doesn't recall seeing the executive at anything less than one hundred percent confident. But Aldis is Peterson's superior; if Carlos fails, then it's Peterson's failure as well. And Strex executives are still employees.

The next second, Carlos understands what he must do.

"No," he says. "No problem, Mr. Aldis."

"Carlos," the director chides. "I told you before, call me Huck."

"It will take me a couple extra minutes to prepare for an alternate subject," Carlos says. "Is that all right...Huck?"

Aldis nods genially. "Go ahead, get cracking!"

Peterson's smile has relaxed, but only a single degree; he's still watching Carlos intently. And behind the two executives stands Giselle, with her steely supervisor's stare.

But none of the three are scientists. The only other scientist present isn't looking at Carlos at all; Nisa continues to gaze blankly into space.

He might be able to pull this off yet. Carlos inhales and launches into his rehearsed explanation. "I assume that all of you understand the scientific principle? The catalyst found in this orange," and he points at the half-peeled fruit in its protected plexiglass case, "induces rapid cascading molecular decohesion in organic entities. That is to say, it disintegrates life-forms, at such a speed and so completely that it can be mistaken for the subject simply vanishing into thin air."

He prepares a beaker, measuring from the flasks of chemicals arranged on the counter, and pours the milky solution into a plastic bottle. As he works he continues lecturing—the more he speaks, the less chances they'll have to think, to question. "The potential for weaponization is obvious, but there are two challenges to overcome. One is the dangerous instability of the catalyst; the second is the method of delivery. My recent experiments showed that external exposure, such as skin contact, has inconsistent results; it can take over fifteen minutes to disintegrate a subject. Internal administration, such as oral or injected, induces the effect more rapidly, but isn't as reliable a method of delivery."

"True, that," Aldis remarks. "Besides, if you've got to use a drink or a blow-dart anyway, you might as well just go with a fast-acting neurotoxin. Tried and true!"

Carlos forces his lips to keep smiling. "Exactly right. I've been looking for a use which exploits the catalyst's specific properties. I came up with this." He hands over his dispenser.

Peterson accepts it; Aldis and Giselle gather around him to inspect it. After a moment Peterson says, "This looks like a standard spray nozzle."

"It is," Carlos says. "I repurposed that one from a bottle of window cleaner procured from the custodial staff. Now, I'm going to extract the enzyme from the orange." He noisily snaps on a new pair of latex gloves, then draws a paper surgical mask over his nose and mouth and makes a show of adjusting its strap, before turning to the plexiglas case holding the orange.

Giselle frowns. "You didn't have a face mask when you extracted from the fruit before."

"Yes, a recent accident exposed a fault in my safety procedures," Carlos says. "You may have seen my requisition yesterday for an extra carton of Bio-Testers..."

The two executives and the supervisor all take a step backwards, away from the encased orange.

"This mask is treated with a stabilization agent, derived from the orange peel. But you shouldn't have much cause for concern," Carlos says. "It's reasonably unlikely the catalyst will disperse around the lab, under standard conditions."

"Even so, you don't happen to have any extra masks, do you?" Aldis asks.

"In the cabinet over there," Carlos says, pointing. "The masks with the green bands are treated."

Aldis, Peterson, and Giselle move as one to the cabinet. While they're busy searching the shelves, Carlos readies a couple of hypodermic needle and syringes. He listens to the executives' urgent muttering—only one mask has been found; there are at least two others in the cabinet, but they're under folders and behind uncovered beakers of ominously colored substances. Aldis has donned the mask, while Peterson argues his case with painstaking deference and only the subtlest hint of desperation.

It's a fraught enough affair that none of them are paying attention as Carlos flips open the plexiglas case and plunges the needle into the orange, extracting the minute amount he needs for his purpose with the speed of experience.

When he turns back, the other two masks have been located. Thus protected, his superiors return to their original positions, leaving a precautionary lab counter between them and the orange, once more sealed away in its box.

Carlos shows them the syringe, filled with a couple milliliters of orange liquid. He empties these contents into his prepared plastic bottle, covers it and shakes it a few times to distribute the solution, tinging the milky liquid a pale orange. Then he removes the lid and screws on the spray bottle top, and holds it out toward the executives. 

They pull back. "It's all right," Carlos says. "This solution is similar to the stabilization agent used to treat the masks. Its charged particles surround the molecules of the transdimensional catalyst, preventing them from contact with organics and so rendering them inert. See?" He strips off one of his latex gloves, and squirts a few drops of the solution onto his bare hand.

The executives cautiously lean forward as Carlos holds out his hand toward them, showing the orange-tinged liquid collected on his skin. They look from his hand back to Carlos, and there is a pregnant pause as they wait for him to disappear.

Nothing happens. At last Aldis says, "So you've neutralized the oranges? Interesting. Not what I was promised—" Peterson's and Giselle's eyes widen in suppressed panic—"but it'll have its uses—"

"No," Carlos corrects, wiping off his hand and stuffing the tissue into his lab coat pocket, "not neutralized. Or rather, not entirely neutralized. This particular stabilization agent is designed to break down under a specific circumstance. If I can proceed with the demonstration...?"

Aldis's face is entirely covered by his helmet and surgical mask, but intense attention shows in every taut line of his yellow pin-striped suit. "Please, go ahead!"

Behind his own mask, Carlos sets his jaw, teeth clenched. This is the moment of reckoning, crossing the point of no return. He looks at Nisa, standing mute and accepting; glances back at the watching executives. There's no choice, not really. All he can do now is make it look as good as possible, and hope it's enough.

He raises the bottle and pulls the trigger three times, spraying a fine mist into the air at face level. "As you can see," he says, "the stabilized compound stays airborne—easy to disseminate through ventilation systems. It's non-corrosive, and moreover, if you're appropriately masked, there is no harm in breathing it," and he inhales deeply through his mask to prove it.

"However, if you have no protection, then once it reaches saturation in the lungs..." Carlos puts down the bottle, and takes Nisa's right hand in both of his. She doesn't react, doesn't flinch or start, her expression remaining vacantly uncaring.

Her hand is cool and dry in his. Carlos lowers his head, trying in vain to meet her blank eyes. Under his breath, his lips hidden by the mask, he murmurs, "I'm sorry."

Then he tugs her hand, like a dancer inviting his partner onto the floor. Nisa steps obediently forward, into the invisible mist.

The executives watch, mesmerized, their eyes fixed on the slight flaring of the woman's nostrils as she breathes in, breathes out, breathes in again.

Carlos counts the seconds in his head. It happens as fast as he calculated. Seven seconds, and Nisa trembles—not a shiver, but like the wavering of a mirage. Carlos squeezes the cool hand clasped in his, but his own fingers tighten on empty space.

He looks into her face, sees it flicker and then reappear, and in that instant he thinks he sees Nisa's eyes widen, sees her mouth open, a split-second of realization, atavistic terror—

Before she can scream, she is gone. All that remains where she stood is a fine powdery dust, set swirling in the brief draft of air rushing to fill the vacuum left behind.

It's a detail a scientist might have noticed—Nisa herself might have noticed, once—but Aldis and Peterson and Giselle don't remark on it. They're struck silent, staring transfixed at that empty space.

Carlos shoves his hands into his pockets, takes another deep breath to force back his rising gorge. He's schooled his features into some likeness of scientific calm by the time the executives tear their eyes away from that emptiness and address him.

"Wow!" Aldis starts to approach, hesitates. "Is it safe?"

Carlos nods. "The mask will protect you from accidental inhalation."

The director steps forward, waves his hand through the air Nisa formerly occupied. "Nothing left—it's like she simply vanished!"

"Thanks to the nature of the molecular decomposition, the majority of atoms immediately reform into atmospheric compounds," Carlos says. "Mostly oxygen and carbon dioxide. Only trace elements remain in solid form."

"I see." Aldis raises his hand before his shielded face. It reflects in the polished gold, as he scans the dust collected on his skin with the helmet's sensor array. Even with the surgical mask hiding his mouth, the grin in his voice is audible. "Amazing! Just like you said, Johnny, he puts on a great show, for a scientist."

"Yes," Peterson says, "he does," though with his own mouth covered, the lines around his eyes look more like stress than laughter, as he stares at Carlos.

"The guys in the defense division will definitely want a look at this," Aldis says, clapping his hands together eagerly. "I can get them in this afternoon—"

"I can't—" Carlos begins to protest. When the director's gold helmet swings in his direction, he blathers, "I can't do another demonstration so quickly; I need to—to prepare more stabilization agent. The ingredients take time to settle, and I only had enough readied for this—"

"How long?"

"Tomorrow," Johnny Peterson says, before Carlos can answer. "How about tomorrow morning? That should be enough time—shouldn't it, Carlos?"

The executive's tone is easy, amiable as always; but the gaze he fixes on Carlos brooks no contradiction. "Tomorrow," Carlos agrees, and hopes that he musters enough points of the mandated smile to pass for confident.

His trembling legs somehow manage to support him through his superiors' departure. Only after Giselle has followed Aldis and Peterson out the laboratory door does Carlos collapse into the chair by his desk. He pulls off the surgical mask and drops his head to his knees, fighting for breath. The weight of guilt feels like physical pressure on his chest, forcing the air from his lungs—another demonstration, and who will it be this time? Who will he damn to...

He grabs for his tablet, activates the security protocol. Then he pulls a discarded Bio-Tester box out from under his desk, begins to stack equipment in it one-handed as he gropes in his pocket for the orange pip. His fingers curl around the small nub of seed, wearing smooth as a worry stone. "Dana," he calls into the empty lab, "Dana, are you there? I need to speak with you—"

"Lie to her, don't you mean?" snarls an angry young voice. Carlos spins to see Tamika Flynn nimbly climb out of the fume hood's air vent. She jumps the last meter and lands like a cat, almost silent on her neon-purple sneakers. "Or are you going to tell her the truth, that you're making weapons for them? That you killed for them?"

Carlos thinks that the girl's sudden appearance should shock him, but the most he can manage is faint relief that she hasn't yet been captured, and a sharper fear that she might be. That if she is, it will be his fault, as everything else has been. "You shouldn't be here; you should've escaped while you could—they might still be searching for you—"

Tamika is edging closer, but Carlos doesn't realize her aim until he starts to stand. Like a released spring, the girl suddenly leaps forward, diving to snatch both the spray bottle and his discarded paper mask off the lab counter before his desk. She rolls back to her feet two meters from Carlos, holding the mask over her mouth as she aims the bottle at him like a gun. "Don't move!"

The bottle is still mostly filled. A drop of the faintly orange liquid inside leaks from the spray nozzle, beading on the plastic trigger. "Who was that silent lady?" Tamika demands. "Someone from Night Vale? Or another place you've betrayed?"

"Nisa's a Strex employee," Carlos says. Pushing the half-full box of equipment aside, he sits down again, keeping his arms non-threateningly at his sides. "Or was; she was a former colleague of mine, and a friend."

"If that's what it's like to be a scientist's friend, I'm glad to be your enemy."

"You'd probably be safer," Carlos wearily admits. "That was all I could do; I was too late to save her." He thinks of Nisa's blank black eyes, the inert sag of her once-smiling mouth, and shudders with grief or guilt or some other emotion too awful to be named.

"Too late—so you killed her instead, like your Strex bosses told you to." Tamika thrusts the spray bottle toward him. "Why shouldn't I disintegrate you, like you just did to your friend, before you can make any more weapons for them?"

"Disintegrate me?" Carlos blinks. "How?"

"I saw all of your demonstration; I know what this does." Tamika gives the bottle a shake, sloshing the liquid inside.

"You don't know about the oranges?" Carlos sinks back in his chair, suddenly understanding. "But I thought they were from Night Vale... I was lying, Tamika, but not to you."

"To that intern Dana, then? That's why you were summoning her, to make excuses, before she finds out what you've done—what side you're really on. You may have fooled her—like you fooled Cecil before—but you won't trick me. I've defeated librarians; scientists are child's play."

"I swear, I'm not trying to trick you. Or Dana."

Tamika's eyes are darker than should be possible under the laboratory's gleaming fluorescents. "Or Cecil? Or were you just pretending to be in love with him?"

"No, I..." Carlos stops, because of course he doesn't know the truth. Doesn't know what he really felt for Cecil, when he remembered him. 

Instead he says, "If that's what you think—if you think I've betrayed Night Vale again, that I've given Strex another weapon to use against you—then go ahead. Use it on me, spray me now."

"I will," Tamika says, not challenging but a flat warning. "If I have to."

"Do it," Carlos tells her. "It's the most expedient proof I can offer."

Tamika narrows her eyes at him, over the mask she has pressed over her mouth and nose. Her small hand is tight around the spray bottle, but not quite pulling its plastic trigger. "Whatever scheme you've arranged, Scientist—"

"It's not a scheme, it's an example. Another datapoint for you. Here, I'll do it myself, just give me the bottle—"

He reaches for it, but Tamika jerks back. Her fingers clench around the trigger as she does, spraying a burst of cool mist directly into Carlos's face. He feels the droplets collect on his cheeks, damp in his nose, the fine particulates suspended in the solution settling as the liquid evaporates.

Tamika stares at him over the mask, unflinching, unapologetic. For a minute she watches him in tenacious silence, as nothing happens. Carlos remains dimensionally present and molecularly stable, and Tamika's incongruously mature patience finally snaps. "Are you holding your breath?"

"No." Carlos inhales and exhales deeply to prove it. 

Tamika's brows lower. She casts the plastic bottle to the floor with a spite that is almost but not quite childlike. "You switched the bottles—this isn't the one with the orange juice!"

"No," Carlos says. "That's the same bottle, but I never put the catalyst in it to begin with—I couldn't; it'd be far too dangerous. I haven't found any compound that can stabilize the extract for more than a few minutes, or prevent it from reacting with organic material. One drop on your skin could catalyze it."

"You told your bosses that the compound would only be activated if you breathed it in."

"Yes. I was lying. I'm a scientist, not a pulmonologist; I have no idea how I'd even start making such a compound. And that mask you're wearing hasn't been treated with anything."

Tamika tears off the mask, scowling. "But I saw that woman be disintegrated."

"You saw her disappear," Carlos says. "Which was due to the orange's catalyst, but not from any spray bottle. All that I injected into that bottle was orange dye." He slowly reaches into his pocket, withdraws the second syringe, now empty, and shows it to Tamika. "I injected Nisa with the real catalyst when I took her hand," he explains. "It acts quickly when introduced directly into the bloodstream, fast enough to give the illusion of catastrophic disintegration. Along with the solution in there," and he nods at the spray bottle, "which condenses into a few trace elements upon exposure to air, to complete the illusion. But it wasn't real—her molecular structure should have remained completely intact and unharmed."

Tamika is still frowning, unconvinced. "If it was an illusion, then where is your friend now?"

Carlos swallows. "That, I don't quite know. But Dana might. Which is why I have to speak to her. Or you can, if you don't trust me." He takes out the orange seed out of his pocket, sets it on the lab counter between them. "If you hold that, Dana should be able to hear you."

Tamika eyes the offering suspiciously. Then, eyes still on Carlos with the wariness of a trained soldier, she picks up the pip between her index finger and thumb, squeezes it as she speaks into the air, "Hello, Intern Dana, are you there? Can you hear me?"

There's a pause long enough for Carlos to fear even his last resort has failed. Then Dana appears in the middle of the lab, stepping out of empty space. "Tamika? Is that you? Where's—Carlos? What's going on?"

"You tell us," Tamika says. "I just saw the Scientist make someone disappear—a woman who was supposedly his friend—"

"Nisa?" Dana asks, turning hopefully to Carlos. Carlos nods.

"Only he claims he didn't actually do anything to her."

"No," Carlos denies, "I definitely did, and it wasn't an optimal solution, but I had to—I had to get her out of their hands." The words catch in his throat. "She'd already been retrained, Dana. I thought it would be better than letting them keep her, letting them destroy whatever was left of her. But she has a family here, a home, like you do, and now..."

Dana's eyes widen. "Carlos, you didn't—the orange?"

"The executives selected Nisa to be the subject of the demonstration," Carlos says. "If I hadn't gone ahead with it, the smiling god only knows what other experiments they might have subjected her to. Have you seen anyone in the desert or on the mountain, Dana? Even given the temporal variations, she should've appeared in your local dimension by now."

Dana shakes her head. "I haven't seen anyone that I...I haven't seen her. But it's a big area, and the geographical loop I'm trapped in may not be the only one here. I'll keep an eye out for her, Carlos."

Tamika looks from Carlos to Dana, then back to Carlos and demands, "You're suggesting that the orange juice doesn't disintegrate, but actually induces transdimensional displacement?"

Carlos blinks. "It's a chemical in the orange oils rather than the juice, but otherwise, yes, exactly. You're educated in quantum physics?"

"Of course; I've read _The Tale of Genji_ ," Tamika says dismissively. "But if Dana hasn't seen your friend, it's just your word that you saved her, wherever she is."

Carlos swallows. "Not even that much. I don't know for certain that she was transported to the same dimension as Dana, and even if she is there, she's trapped, just as Dana is. Nisa's alive, most likely. But hardly saved."

"It's not so bad here," Dana offers. "I don't need food or water, and my cellphone did work for months without charging. There is the light, but there's lots of shade on the mountain. So even if it takes me a while to find her, she should be fine. In my opinion, it's much preferable to being disintegrated, though I'm not speaking from personal experience, of course."

"But Nisa won't be the only one," Carlos says. "They want me to do it again tomorrow, another demonstration. I don't know who the subject will be—or subjects."

"Oh, no." Dana puts her hand to her mouth. "What are you going to do?"

Carlos takes a breath, hears it tremble when he exhales. "I've been thinking about that. And as a scientist, I don't know what else I can do." He gets up from his chair, finishes stacking equipment in the cardboard box. Then he carries it over to the orange, sets the box down on the counter beside the plexiglas case.

Dana just watches, puzzled, until Carlos unlatches the case and starts to raise the lid. "You're not wearing gloves, you should be more careful—"

"I'm not trying to be careful," Carlos says. "The opposite, in fact."

Dana's gasp is audible. "Carlos—!"

"If I'm not here, then I can't do any demonstration for them," Carlos says. "It will appear to be a lab accident; it could potentially discourage further study of the oranges. Even if not, there's enough misinformation in my notes to set their research back." It may come at the cost of others lost to the other dimension. But that's better than the alternatives. And it won't be Carlos personally damning them. He won't have to look anyone else in the eyes as he betrays them.

It's a logical plan, but Carlos wasn't sure if he could actually do it. But standing before the orange now, he's not afraid, not hesitating. That numbness might be shock, but he thinks it's more likely relief. He'll be out of reach of Strex's demands, out of reach of polygraph exams and psych sessions. Away from Johnny Peterson's insistent eyes, and Kevin's too-compelling voice on the radio.

Out of reach of Cecil's voice as well, and Night Vale. But then, they're not his anyways. He's not Carlos the Scientist anymore. Though he's pretty sure this is something Carlos the Scientist would do, if he had to.

"Wait," Dana says. Panic makes her eyes huge. "You can't do this, Carlos. If you're here on the mountain, then how will you get me back? You promised you'd help me—"

"That's what this equipment is for," Carlos says, patting the cardboard box. "I believe the majority of these contents will be dimensionally shifted with me, if I'm holding onto it. We can work on the problem from that side, together."

"Only if I can find you," Dana says. "What if I don't? What if I'm lost here forever, stranded—what if you're lost here?"

"You just said yourself, it isn't so bad there."

"Yes, but I..." Dana's hands are clenched around one another, so tightly the knuckles are bleached. She steps before him, between him and the orange, looks earnestly up into his face. "Carlos, if you cross over to this dimension now, then you'll never return to Night Vale ever again."

There's an odd quality to her voice. Not just insistence or honesty, but truth. As if she's not predicting the unknowable future, but describing a basic, fundamental state of existence. Carlos stares at her. "How do you—how can you possibly know that?" 

"It doesn't matter who told me, they shouldn't be real anyway—but you can't touch that orange, Carlos," Dana says. "Please, don't touch it. Not if you ever want to go home."

"Night Vale isn't..." Carlos shakes his head. "If I stay here, then I don't know what else they'll make me do. Not just using the catalyst on other people; once Strex has this, then they'll give me another project. And if I refuse, or if they figure out I'm no longer working in their best interests—they could retrain me again, take away all my new memories, so I won't remember anything about you, or Night Vale, or the radio, or Cecil. I can't—I can't let that happen, Dana. I'll think I'm their employee again; they'll make my science work for them, make me do whatever they want me to do—"

"No, they won't," Tamika Flynn says suddenly. Carlos and Dana both turn back to the girl, standing before Carlos's desk with her arms crossed and her small square chin set in rebellious determination. "Because I'm leaving tonight—I'm going back to Night Vale." She points at Carlos. "And I'm bringing you back with me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! And thank you for waiting patiently for this chapter - I'll try to get the next one up faster!


	20. Chapter 20

Carlos doesn't leave the facility until well after sunset. He passes through security without incident, walking into the dry desert night. Even approaching summer as it is, the air is crisp enough to ache when he fills his lungs with it.

Not until he's standing on the shuttle port sidewalk does he allow himself to think, _This is the last time_. The last time he submits his End-of-Day report and turns out the lights in his windowless laboratory; the last time he offers his wrist for the guard to scan his S-chip and passes through the reinforced double doors into the open air. The last time he follows the productive, secure routine of a good employee, walking in reassuring step with all his thousands of co-workers.

It's lonely. It's terrifying. It's all Carlos can do to keep his smile from spreading wider than the company mandated limits for public courtesy. 

He doesn't go back to the company dorm. Instead he gets on a shuttle to the entertainment district. There's nothing notable about that; he emailed his former colleague Fritz earlier tonight, asking if he'd be at Frank's, mentioning that he needed to unwind. After the day he's had, after what happened to Nisa, it must make psychological sense.

As it happens, however, Carlos boards the wrong shuttle. It's an easy error; they're only one number off. Even scientists can make mistakes. This shuttle's route drops Carlos off several blocks from the bar, further on the edge of town. 

Carlos has never been to this part of Desert Bluffs, but on occasion he's heard it discussed at Frank's and in the cafeterias, in lewd whispers and nudges under the table. Dr. Tithoes had even suggested that Carlos check it out at one session. While its neon is as ubiquitous as the rest of the city, the colors are darker, more reds than the usual bright yellows, and the signs on the painted-over windows make promises unseen elsewhere: _Private rooms_ and _Company-approved discretion_.

Most of the people on the sidewalks here keep their heads down; but a few loitering in doorways and under the neon signs make deliberate eye-contact, winking and smiling with various degrees of professional aptitude.

Carlos scans these, until he catches the eye of one of the more amateur smiles, a man a few years younger than himself, wearing a Desert Bluffs Sunbeams baseball cap and smoking outside an open doorway. Noticing Carlos's observation, the man slides out from his artful lean, steps into Carlos's path. "Hey, guy," he murmurs, discreetly soft. "Want to go inside with me?"

Carlos looks him up and down, then nods. The man gestures with the smoking Strex-stick in his hand, guiding Carlos through the doorway, up a flight of stairs and down a narrow, dim hallway into a narrow, dim room. Its only apparent furnishing is a bed, double the width of Carlos's economical dorm mattress, with trimly tucked, slick silver sheets of a material designed for advanced fluid technology.

There are no electronic locks, only a deadbolt on the door that the man opens with a key; and no chip-scanner in the room. "Um," Carlos says, not needing any effort to sound anxious and unsure. "This is my first time at—with—this is my first time. Do you take scrip?"

"No, but if you've got a credit chit, I can give you a first-timer's discount." The man stubs out his Strex-stick, looks up at Carlos with lashes lowered over his bloodshot eyes. "Welcome you to the neighborhood."

"I see," Carlos says. He nervously shoves his hands in his lab coat's pockets. "One more thing, are you company-certified?"

The man's smile falters; he shifts it back in place like a woman adjusting her bra. "I can show you my certificate," he says diffidently.

Carlos curls his fingers around the slip of plastic in his pocket. "But I'm guessing its ID string wouldn't match your S-chip's." 

"What does certification matter anyway? Those shrinks don't know anything—won't even prescribe the proper doses. Not enough to live on." The man steps forward to put his hands on Carlos's arms, warm against his bare skin. "Give me a chance, guy, and you'll forget the company even exists."

"I think I've forgotten enough," Carlos says, pulls the prickle-patch from his pocket and slaps it against the back of the man's wrist. The plastic membrane collapses under his fingers as the nanotube needles deliver the patch's drug payload.

"Hey!" The man yanks back his arm to examine the reddened blotch on his skin, already fading. "What was that?" He grabs the patch out of Carlos's unresisting hand.

It's too late; the patch is drained, only a residue of magenta liquid remaining in the plastic seal. "Fast-track?" the man asks.

"Yes," Carlos confirms. It's the same prickle-patch Nisa tried to use on him, right before they started working together. It feels like ages ago, rather than merely weeks. Nisa was trying to get him fired, get him removed from Strex's employment; the irony of how he's using the patch now aches. "I'm sorry."

" _Sorry?_ For what?" The man tosses the patch aside, his face splitting into a broad, reckless grin. "Why didn't you offer that right off the bat? Forget credit, for a hit of fast-track you can have me all night!"

"That dosage was large enough that you'll miss at least a day of work," Carlos says. A day or more that he won't be coherent or conscious to report this encounter to anyone, either.

"Who cares? What's the point of going anyway, if I've already got my dose?" The man laughs giddily, throwing out his arms. He's already wobbling on his feet; Carlos catches his elbow before he can fall.

"If they ask," he tells the man, "if you're taken in for interrogation, tell them everything—that you've never met me before tonight, that I drugged you against your will."

"Whatever you say, guy." The man presses himself against Carlos, clumsy and eager, nuzzling Carlos's cheek as he mumbles, "Whatever you need, s'yours, for this..."

Carlos pulls him over to the bed, disentangles his arms to sit him safely down. "I need your cap. And your key."

"Whah?" The man's eyes cross; his smile is lapsing into slack-jawed bliss. He offers no protest when Carlos takes the baseball cap off his head and the key ring out of his pocket. When Carlos gently pushes his shoulder, he flops back on the bed, limp and supine as he giggles aimlessly up at the ceiling.

Carlos takes out the emitter he cannibalized from his desk scanner earlier this evening, presses it over his inner wrist, where the S-chip is implanted. It hums as he switches it on, flashing the firmware. He doesn't have the equipment to safely remove the implant, but with the chip reset it can't be used to track him. He flashes the man's S-chip as well. The man doesn't notice; he's lost in a euphoric stupor, moaning with obvious delight as his dreaming eyes flutter.

Carlos empties out his lab coat's pockets of the few things he took from the lab this evening. He stashes the flash drives and one bottle of water in his jeans, puts the other water bottle on the bed beside the man's head. Then he takes off the white coat, folds it and places it under the bed, along with the emitter and his tablet. He puts on the baseball cap, checks the pulse of the man on the bed to make sure it's steady, then sees himself out the door, locking the deadbolt behind him.

As Carlos exits the building he pulls the cap low over his face. He's around the same height and build as the man he left back on the bed, and without the lab coat their jeans and dark t-shirts are similarly non-descript. Carlos doesn't know where the cameras on this street are, but he keeps the cap brim down to block their line of sight, and no one glances his way as he heads down the street.

In a block he ducks between the circles of illumination cast by streetlights and slips into a side alley. Carlos spent half an hour this afternoon studying a city map, plotting the best route; he navigates around shuttle routes and late-night shopping marts now, glancing back over his shoulder with every other step. No one is following him. Once he hears the thudding roar of a helicopter, but he keeps his head down and the chopper passes overhead without flashing a spotlight on the street.

The streetlights are fewer here at the edge of town, but it's easy to find his way by the sullen glow of the velvety night sky. At last he reaches a chain-link fence, three meters high. An unlit, peeling billboard claims, "Overlook Park, coming soon!" Over the board is pasted a banner marked with orange triangles, announcing, "Overlook Development Inc. is now a productive subsidiary of StrexCorp."

Placards affixed to the fence warn away trespassers and caution Construction Site, but the darkness beyond the chain-link is still and quiet. It's so quiet that when a shape does loom out of the shadows, Carlos jumps, just stopping himself from shouting aloud, before Dana speaks.

"Carlos, you made it, thank the Void! Were you followed?" 

Carlos shakes his head, taking a deep breath as his heartrate drops back to a normal rhythm. "Not as far as I can tell," he whispers back. "Where's Tamika?"

"Here," says Tamika Flynn, a small obscure shadow materializing before him, seemingly out of the darkness itself, as if she too were hiding in an alternate dimension. "There's a gap in the fence a couple of blocks from here. Come on."

Carlos glances up at the wire barrier. "We're not going to climb it?"

In answer Tamika takes out her knife and lobs it at the fence. The blade hits horizontally, touching two of the metal links. There is a sizzling _pop_ and a shower of brilliant white sparks outline the knife, before it drops to the ground.

Tamika picks her knife up without a word, sheathes it and starts walking. Carlos shuts his mouth and follows.

Dana walks next to him, keeping in range of the orange pip in Tamika's pocket. As they make their way along the fence, Carlos asks her, "Have you located Nisa yet?"

Dana shakes her head. "Sorry, I haven't seen any sign of her over here. But I'll keep looking."

"Here it is," Tamika says. The gap, as it turns out, isn't a break in the chain-link but a hole dug in the sand under it. It's covered, ironically, by a fallen No Trespassing sign. Tamika kicks this aside, then kneels to crawl through the hole. On the other side of the fence, she jumps back to her feet, brushes sand off her jeans as she tells Carlos, "Be careful not to touch the exposed wires."

Carlos crouches to examine the hole, with the ends of the electrified chain-link poking down over the sand. They've been bent back to make some room, enough for a child, anyway.

"Are you coming?" Tamika taps her sneaker impatiently, as Dana looks nervously back at the maroon glow of Desert Bluffs' city lights.

Carlos kneels, then stretches out flat on the ground to worm through the hole, sliding with his stomach against the sand. He pulls himself through with his arms, careful not to lift his head or his feet until he's cleared the fence.

As soon as he's climbed to his feet, Tamika takes off. Though his legs are longer, Carlos has to break into a run to keep up, following the girl down a gravel track between the shadowy mounds of plowed dirt and sand. In the sky's dull glow, the remains of the abandoned construction site loom like the last roots of some ancient, ground-down mountain chain.

Carlos trips on the gravel, scraping his palms, his knees. His legs are starting to burn with the unaccustomed exertion. He loses sight of Tamika in the shadows, but Dana shouts to him, unconcerned about being overheard, keeping him on course, encouraging him.

The encouragement is unnecessary; Carlos doesn't want to slow down. He'll run all the way to Night Vale if he has to.

 _Night Vale_. It's the first time he's let himself even think the word, since Tamika said it this morning. He is going to Night Vale—going back to Night Vale, with its bloodstones and its battle against Strex. Going back to Dana's home, and Tamika's.

Going back to Cecil, and Carlos doesn't know what that means, not really; but he knows he wants it. He wants to see Cecil's face, to see Cecil's smile; wants to hold Cecil's hand and find out if it feels like Carlos has dreamed it. He wants to hear Cecil's voice, not over the radio but whispered in his ear, close enough to feel Cecil's breath against his skin...

"Stop!" Tamika says, and Carlos stumbles to a halt. His shuffling feet kick a single jagged pebble. It doesn't rattle against gravel, but falls, skipping off solid stone, down and down until it can't be heard anymore.

They're standing at the edge of the mesa, scarcely a meter from the drop-off. The leaden night sky hangs overhead, while below the desert's unlit expanse unfurls, a seeming unending plane of flat darkness, only defined by a faint glow along the horizon.

Carlos hunches over, hands on his thighs as he pants for breath. Dana puts a hand on and slightly through his shoulder, offering imperceptible support.

"Our ride will meet us at the bottom," Tamika says.

"The bottom?" Carlos sidles forward a cautious step, craning his neck to look over the drop-off. 

"There's a path down," Tamika says. "Plus I've got a rope, and I've read Chesterton's _The Man Who Was Thursday_."

"Of course you have," Carlos murmurs. The sandstone sill is not quite perpendicular, but close enough, plunging down into blackness; the scrublands at the mesa's base are hidden in shadows too deep for the sky's glow to penetrate. It's like staring into the void.

Somewhere down in that abyss is Night Vale. Carlos takes a gulp of air, asks, "Which way?"

"Over here." Tamika indicates a marginally more gradual incline. Her path is less a marked trail than a general notion of descent, but the mesa's shale layers here have been eroded and tectonically shifted into something of a steep natural staircase.

Still, each step has to be placed carefully, to avoid slipping in the dark. Tamika leads the way, and Dana tries to guide Carlos along the same route, but more than once the stone crumbles under his heavier feet, forcing him to scrabble for handholds. It's slow going, and every meter down it gets darker, Desert Bluffs's lights cut off by the edge of the mesa's caprock overhead.

Carlos's eyes gradually adjust. It's darker out here than ever it gets in Desert Bluffs; even in his windowless room there was always the glow of electronic diodes. But even this night isn't impenetrable. As they descend, stars slowly emerge in the sky's deepening black, like lights rising to the surface of a bottomless ocean; and low on the horizon there's a crescent moon. Carlos finds himself staring at it, an orb of shadow edged in an arc glowing white. It's brighter than he recalls, almost blinding against the night sky.

He tries to remember the last time he saw the moon; can't. Yet it feels familiar, hanging in the sky before him, an immovable, indifferent presence.

The mesa gets steeper as they continue descending. Rock scrapes and crunches underfoot, echoing over the rush of wind blowing in their ears. The steps become too narrow for Dana to walk beside Carlos, though she keeps between him and Tamika, sometimes standing within the cliff-face, sometimes floating beside it, pointing out the best paths down.

Carlos keeps one hand against the rock-face to steady himself, wondering about the composition of the rough stone under his fingers. Sandstone, shale, maybe limestone? Or basalt? He's not a geologist. Nisa would know, or Fritz... Carlos wonders, guiltily, if he should have gone to see his other former colleague after all. Told him something. But Fritz isn't in trouble; he's a loyal company man.

As well as the stars and moon, there's another glimmer in the night, not over the horizon but beneath it. A fallen star, is Carlos's nonsensical first thought; but of course it can't be. Nor water, not in the desert. That pinprick of light in the desert's vast dark must be artificial. A community.

 _Night Vale_ , Carlos thinks, and shivers from more than the air's chill. His heart, already pounding hard enough for him to hear it in his ears over the wind, thumps emphatic validation.

There was a part of him, Carlos realizes, that didn't believe it was real. Even after Dana and Tamika and Cecil's broadcasts, after observations and proofs that should have been enough for any scientist, some part of him still feared it was a figment, a delusion. That spark in the darkness is scant evidence; yet seeing it satisfies something in him that he hadn't realized was so disturbed, until it's set right.

His mouth is dry, and when he reaches for the water bottle his hands are shaking as if it's his first day on an ASAP regimen, though it's been over twenty-four hours since his last dose. It's possibly withdrawal; equally possible that it's just due to the unusual exertion, without the energy of stimulants to fuel him. Leaning back against the mesa's stone, Carlos takes a long draught of lukewarm water. It doesn't quench his thirst, but there will be more water in Night Vale.

Carlos wonders if Cecil is on the air tonight. He left his illicit radio back at the dorm this morning; it's the one thing he regrets leaving behind. He wonders what Cecil is saying, if he is broadcasting. Does he know about Tamika Flynn's expected return? Has Tamika contacted him somehow, mentioned that she's bringing someone along with her? Carlos's heart skips an anxious beat. What if Cecil expects—is expecting—is hoping...

"Hey, Scientist," Tamika calls upwards. She's stopped moving, so the only sound is the wind ruffling his short hair, and her voice echoing off the mesa's face. "Are you coming?"

"Yes, just catching my breath." Carlos pockets the water bottle, brushes back his hair, though it's too short to get in his eyes. As he starts down again, he asks over the whistling wind, "Do you know what time is it?"

There's a brief pause, then Tamika says, "Just passed midnight. Why?"

Carlos exhales, breath bursting from his lungs, though he's not sure if it's from anxiety or relief. "It's done, then."

"What's done?" Dana asks.

"Before I left tonight, I rigged something in the lab," he explains. "An incendiary device, planted in the box holding the orange. Provided it wasn't discovered, it was set to go off at midnight."

"You burned the orange?"

"More like exploded...and not just the orange," Carlos says. "If the device worked as intended, it should've spattered most of the lab with the orange's transdimensional constituent. And I mixed in an organic compound to make sure it's activated, whatever it lands on." Lacking another supply of vital fluid, he'd used half a liter from his own veins. The blood orange factor should be potent.

"So your equipment and your research..."

"Will have been transferred to Dana's dimension. Inaccessible to anyone on this side."

"So I should look for a pile of science here, along with your friend Nisa?" Dana asks.

"It isn't that important to recover," Carlos says. "I've brought a backup of the data, and I deleted most of it off the Strex servers, whatever I could that wouldn't be immediately noticed. And changed what I couldn't delete. They might be able to recover some of the original data, but it should slow down any immediate research."

Tamika is quiet, considering, for the next few steps down. At last she says, her child's voice firm, "Good work."

Carlos has been told that before, by company supervisors and executives, but he's never felt so much pride in hearing it. "Thank you."

They keep climbing. Carlos is soon thirsty again, takes out the water bottle. The plastic cap slips from his unsteady fingers, bouncing off the stone at his feet to launch into the darkness. He doesn't hear it hit the stone again. The bottle is nearly empty anyway; Carlos finishes it, upending it to pour the last drops down his throat. They don't soothe; his tongue is so dry it feels swollen in his mouth.

The next part of their path is the steepest yet. Below him, Tamika ties her rope around a sandstone outcropping and lowers herself down it. Carlos squats against a jutting rock, listening to her descent as he looks out across the desert, seeking the dot of light amid the darkness that is Night Vale.

As he squints at it, the light blurs, doubles and then re-combines. Carlos rubs his eyes to clear them. There's sweat running down his face, though he doesn't feel hot; more chilled, with the wind blowing against his damp skin.

"Your turn," Tamika calls up. Carlos wipes his brow and pushes himself upright—then sways, struck by unexpected dizziness, the cliff-face tilting under him. He stoops, breathing deeply and clutching at the reassuringly solid rock until the lightheadedness passes.

"Carlos?" Dana asks, her voice suddenly close. She's standing beside him, one foot on the narrow ledge and the other balanced on empty space, and Carlos closes his eyes against another surge of vertigo. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," Carlos says. "Just a little tired; mountain climbing isn't one of my regular hobbies."

"Of course not," Dana says. "Mountains aren't real. Except the one I'm on, possibly; but that depends, I think..."

"Right." Carlos grabs Tamika's rope in both hands. The material isn't readily identifiable, as light as nylon but silken smooth, and thick enough not to bite too deeply into his palms. With his legs braced against the irregular rock face, Carlos starts the climb, lowering himself hand over hand as he slowly rappels down.

It's not a completely vertical descent, and only about five meters, but his arms are trembling before he's halfway down. Carlos grits his teeth, locks his hands around the rope as he struggles to catch his breath.

"Come on, Scientist, we don't have all night," Tamika calls up to him impatiently.

"You can do it, Carlos," Dana says from above him, "you're almost there."

Carlos tries to answer, but his next breath brings a sudden, piercing pang, like being hit with a bolt of electricity, or a supervisor's inspiration rod.

He feels the rope slip from his suddenly numb hands, hears both Dana and Tamika shout. The next thing he knows, his back is slamming into solid rock. It's a disorienting, jarring impact that rattles his teeth in his head and starts him sliding down a steep incline. 

Carlos flails for purchase, but only manages to scrape his hands on the stone. Then a small but strong arm catches around his chest and hauls him up to a more level ridge of stone.

Tamika's face looms above his. Behind her hovers Dana, her eyes wide enough that Carlos can see their whites in the shadows. "What happened?" Tamika asks.

"Don't know," Carlos wheezes. His chest aches like the girl is sitting on it, rather than standing over him, but the surge of pain has faded to a dull throbbing. "My hands slipped..."

"Can you get up?"

"Yes—" Carlos gathers his legs underneath him, only to have his knees collapse as soon as he puts any weight on them, with another wave of paralyzing pain, fierce and freezing. Tamika manages to catch him before he tumbles off the ledge, wedging him back between the rocks.

"Or—not, apparently," Carlos pants.

"Where does it hurt?" Tamika demands, running her hands over his legs. "Is it a break, a sprain, a bruise? Talk to me, Scientist."

"I d-don't know." Carlos is shivering and can't stop; his fingers are tingling and his toes are numb. Pain moves through his body in a pulsating current, like icewater pumped into his veins. It doesn't feel like an injury; the agony is unlocalized, pervasive, like nothing he's felt before.

Dana crouches beside him; the draft of her hands passing through him almost feels warm, against the pain's freezing chill. He's at the wrong angle to see her face, but he hears her gasp, a low horrified sound. Her voice is quavering as she says, "Tamika, look at this—"

Tamika takes out a penlight, bright as a tiny star, and plays it over Carlos, shining it onto his bare arms.

Carlos looks down with watering eyes, and sees, drawn on his arms, a network of branching lines, bleached pale against his darker skin. They move even as he watches, growing over the length of his arms like some awful vine beneath his skin, threading between his fingers and circling his wrists, climbing up to his elbows and around his biceps, to disappear under his t-shirt's sleeves.

"What is that?" Dana asks, her voice steadier, but still aghast. "I've never seen anything like that."

"It's growing from here," Tamika says, tracing one line with her light, from Carlos's bicep, around his shoulder and up to his jawline. Then she frowns. "What's this?" She touches his neck along the carotid artery, and the pain doubles, as if her finger is liquid nitrogen, blistering his skin. Carlos gasps. 

"What is this doing here, Scientist?" Tamika demands, and her voice is even colder than her touch, stripped of any sympathy or trust.

Carlos gingerly touches his throat. His fingers brush the outline of corners, equilateral angles, flush against his skin. The metal of the orange triangle is hot against his icy flesh, almost burning his fingertips. "No," he says, his voice hoarse; his mouth is so dry it feels like his tongue might crack. "It's not—it can't—"

"Is it a cyborg implant?" Tamika asks. The penlight in left hand gleams off metal in her right—she's drawn her sharpened letter opener. "Or a tracking device?"

Carlos shakes his head. "No! I was made Employee of the Month—this is a badge, a symbol. That's all. I tested it days ago, to be sure. It's only inert metal; it can't transmit anything. It couldn't..."

"Then what is it doing now?" Tamika demands. She puts the tip of her blade against the triangle and bears down slightly, and Carlos gags on a yelp, breath strangled by the surging pain.

"Tamika, stop!" Dana cries, batting at Tamika's knife with insubstantial hands. "It's hurting him, that's obviously what it's doing!"

"I don't know—what it's doing," Carlos chokes out. He stretches out his fingers, the joints aching as if frostbitten, and watches as pallid tendrils wind like exposed veins around his knuckles. "It's never—hurt me before. Something's changed."

"Maybe it's because you're not an employee anymore?" Dana suggests.

"Or because next week's the end of the month?" Tamika says. "What happens to other employees who have this thing?"

"I don't know," Carlos says. "I only was at the company for a few months; I never met another Employee of the Month."

"You don't know much, do you. I thought scientists were supposed to figure things out."

"We are," Carlos says. "But I haven't been much of a scientist. Not for a long time."

"So what do we do?" Dana asks. 

Scientifically speaking, there are a number of possible answers. Practically, there are fewer. Carlos draws a breath through the pain, says, "You should go on ahead. Keep climbing down. I can catch up after I've rested."

Tamika's snort clearly expresses her opinion of the likelihood of that, even as Dana says, "Carlos, no! Tamika, you can't leave him here—"

"No," Tamika agrees. She pulls out the length of silky rope, wraps a loop around Carlos's chest. "I'll have to lower you down."

"No," Carlos protests. "You can't—"

"Of course she can," Dana says, "Tamika will get you to the bottom, and then there's a ride back to Night Vale—"

"You can't," Carlos repeats, struggling to remove the rope Tamika is tying around him in a crude harness. His pale-lined hands are clumsy, stiff and going numb. "It'll be too slow; you can't risk it."

"Yes, she can," Dana says, "you always can take a risk; that's what makes it a risk, instead of a certainty."

"Tamika, listen to me! Whatever this is in me, you can't bring it back to Night Vale. It could spread to others, or cause some worse problem—"

Tamika knots another loop around his arms, tightens it with a quick short motion. "So what am I supposed to do?" she says. "Go back to Night Vale and tell Cecil that I found his scientist, but I left him behind on the side of the mesa with some Strex bio-mechanism infecting him? I've never read of any hero doing something like that."

"You don't have to tell him that," Carlos says.

"Telling him I left you behind in Desert Bluffs would be even worse."

"Don't tell him that you found me," Carlos says. "If I don't make it back with you—don't tell Cecil that I'm alive."

Dana makes a small, protesting noise. Tamika stops tying the rope to glare up at him. "You shouldn't tell him," Carlos says. His throat is thick with more than the physical pain of those pale lines. He thinks of Cecil's voice on the radio, the grief that he'd only rarely heard, and could only understand in abstract. But that's understanding enough. "You can guess how low the probability is that I'll escape, once Strex recaptures me. It would be better if Cecil never found out I survived. So he doesn't have to mourn all over again."

"You're talking like he's ever stopped mourning," Tamika says.

"Even if I made it back," Carlos says, "I don't remember Cecil anymore. I wouldn't even recognize him if I saw him, I don't know him at all—"

"Whether or not you know him, you still care about him, it sounds like," Tamika says, as Dana nods. "I think Cecil will be all right with that. He was all right with you taking a year to return his feelings—I was in the summer reading program then, so I didn't hear it myself, but people talked about it afterwards."

"They did?" Tamika, Carlos realizes, was in Night Vale then, as Dana was not. In spite of the circumstances, Carlos almost asks her for more details. Wants to hear more about it, how it happened, how he came to fall in love.

Though not from Tamika. He wants to hear it from Cecil himself—not whatever narration he gave over the radio, but Cecil's own story, what he remembers, what he felt. What he knows of Carlos's own feelings, even if Carlos has forgotten.

He wants to know who he was—who he is, in Night Vale.

Carlos shudders, grits his teeth and says, "Remove it."

Dana and Tamika both stare at him.

"This badge," Carlos says, splaying his shaky, pale-veined fingers over the triangle burning on his neck. "Whatever it is, I can't bring it back to Night Vale—so cut it off me."

"Are you sure?" Dana says, twisting her hands together anxiously. Tamika asks no questions, just draws her blade again.

Carlos looks straight into the girl's dark eyes, reflecting back the surrounding night, minus any stars. "You have first aid training, right? You must've read about that."

Tamika nods steadily. "Then do it," Carlos says, tipping back his head to expose his neck. "Get this off me."

Tamika presses her lips together, then without a word or any hesitation, sets her knife to Carlos's neck and bears down. The pain is excruciating, burning through every nerve in his body and bursting behind his eyes, so intense that Carlos whites out.

When he comes back to himself, his whole body is tensed, limbs curled in and cramping. Cold sweat stings in his eyes and his throat is hoarse, torn raw.

As the ringing in his ears subsides he hears soft voices, tense with concern; it's difficult to discern words, but among the jumbled syllables he makes out his name. Carlos blinks hard, trying to focus on the faces floating above him. Dana and Tamika are both staring at him, their faces cast in an eerie, insipid glow.

Carlos struggles to lift his hand to his neck, only to freeze when he sees his hand. It's still encircled in a web of lines, but they've grown thicker, and brighter—now glimmering in the dark with greenish-white bioluminescence. Carlos gapes at this glow, momentarily distracted from the agony. "Did you remove it...?"

"We couldn't." Water glitters in Dana's eyes in the ghostly light. "Tamika couldn't get the blade in—she couldn't cut your skin, as if those lines were shielding it, and then they grew brighter, until this—"

"That's not our only problem." Tamika's head is cocked; she points at the sky above. "Do you hear that?"

Carlos strains his ears, and hears, over the wind, so faintly distant it might almost be imagined, a steady, rhythmic sound. As he listens it grows incrementally louder, beat by beat—the thrumming reverb of helicopter rotors.

He stares down at the glowing tracery on his forearm, the branching patterns wavering before his eyes, clear and then blurring. If it's emitting into the visual spectrum, it could be at other wavelengths as well—radiation, radio waves. "These are bringing them. Signaling." He tries to stand, but doesn't have the strength even to support himself on his trembling arms, instead slumps back against the ledge, gasping, "Tamika, my left pocket—the flash drives—"

Tamika reaches into his pocket, pulls out the drives. Carlos nods jerkily. "My research. Can't let Strex have it back. Now—get out of here. Hurry. Night Vale's counting on you."

Tamika grips his arm. The glowing lines throb where her fingers dig in, as she searches his face. Carlos can't guess what she finds there, but she nods once, uncoils the rope from around him and hangs it over her shoulder.

"The orange pip!" Dana exclaims. "Tamika, quick, give it back to Carlos!"

Carlos shakes his head. "No, keep it."

"If she takes the seed, then I won't be able to stay with you, Carlos—"

"They'll search me—take it anyways. Tamika can bring the seed back to Night Vale. Back to your family." He meets the girl's eyes. "You'll take it to them?"

"I will." Tamika stands, head tilted back to look up the mesa, towards the approaching yellow helicopter, now a pair of blinking lights against the sky. Then she looks back down at him, her small jaw set. "We'll defeat Strex," she says. "And you'll help, Carlos the Scientist."

"I'll try my best," Carlos says. "Good luck."

"I don't need luck," Tamika says, turning away. "I know how to read."

She waves without looking back, jumps off the ledge down to the next outcropping, agile as a mountain goat, and then out of sight.

Dana stays beside him. "I'm sorry," Carlos tells her. "That I couldn't get you back to this dimension."

Dana shakes her head, dashing tears from her eyes. "You can later. Like you promised."

She reaches out, and Carlos with effort lifts his hand, so their fingers overlap, a coolness against his skin that doesn't burn. "At least you'll be able to see Night Vale again," he says. "See your family, your friends. Cecil..."

"I'll come back," Dana says. "I'll find you again. I did before you ever had that orange—"

But he had a bloodstone then, Carlos thinks. And Strex won't be giving him any more of those. He doesn't say that, instead tells her, "Dana, if they take my memories again—if they take me—"

"They won't!" Dana has to shout to make herself heard over the thunder of the incoming helicopter. She's getting harder to see, not just due to the darkness, or his blurring vision; her form is becoming less substantial, wavering like a reflection on choppy water. She hunches her shoulders, fighting to stay in place. "They couldn't before—even if a few details slipped your mind, what really matters still is there. Whatever they do, they can't change who you are."

"But if they do," Carlos says. "Dana, if you see Cecil, tell him—tell him that I—"

A dazzling light flashes over the cliff-face, too close. If they spot Tamika—Carlos hollers hoarsely, drags up one arm as if to grab that piercing yellow beam. The spotlight wavers, dips out of sight and then sweeps back up the cliff to fix on him, engulfing him in a circle of light as hot and blinding as the sun.

It wouldn't illuminate Dana—but she's gone, only empty air beside Carlos.

He sags back against the stone, closing his eyes against the painful light. The chopper's downdraft scatters sand and gravel over him, but the stinging against his skin is hardly noticeable over the throbbing ache infecting him. The noise and wind muffles other sounds; there are voices shouting commands, but he can't make sense of them, and doesn't have the strength to respond even if he wanted to.

The impact of boots shake the rock under him, and something is pressed to his neck, neither freezing nor burning but pleasantly cool. He hears the click-hiss of an auto-injector, and then numbness spreads through him, a soothing, sensationless respite, smothering the pain and leaving a blessed nothing in its place. 

Carlos can hardly feel the prickling in his eyes, struggles to blink away tears of helpless relief. Even as his body is lifted up on a litter, it feels like he's sinking, like he's trapped in a gravity field a hundred times Earth's, his numb body grown too heavy to move. He can barely lift his eyelids, can barely raise his eyes to the silhouetted figures standing over him, sharp-lined shadows thrusting like spears from their fingers in the spotlight's harsh glare.

One of these figures shakes his head, regret and disappointment in every angle of his crisply cut suit. "Oh, Carlos," Johnny Peterson says, as Carlos's vision goes dark, "I really hoped you were smarter than this..."


	21. Chapter 21

Carlos returns to consciousness gradually, like swimming up through murky water. It takes him a moment to realize his eyes are open, that there is light before him, moving shapes. A little after that, it occurs to him to try to focus. A face resolves before him, bearded, smiling, calm eyes watching him patiently.

Carlos frowns at this visage. "Dr. Tithoes?"

His voice is hoarse, scratching his dry throat, but the psychiatrist brightens to hear it. "Carlos!" he gladly exclaims. "You're awake, excellent. Would you like some water?" He sets aside his tablet, holds up a plastic cup with a straw stuck in it.

Carlos sits up from the pillow he's propped against, tries to reach for the cup, only for his arms to be stopped with a jerk. He blinks down confusedly at the cuffs around his wrists, holding him to the bed with only a couple centimeters of slack.

"Oh, excuse me," Dr. Tithoes says, and turns the cup around to put the straw to Carlos's lips. Carlos sucks it dry, the straw knocking against the ice. As he swallows, the doctor continues, "I'm sorry about those," nodding at the cuffs. "A necessary precaution, I'm afraid, for your own safety."

"Precaution?"

Dr. Tithoes picks up his tablet, looks Carlos in the eyes, polite concern in every curve of his quiet smile. "Carlos, what's the last thing you remember?"

"Remember..." His mind is clearing, coming back into focus like his vision. Carlos takes a deep breath, exhales as he looks around the room. It's small, not much larger than the single bed he's cuffed to, and the single chair the psychiatrist is sitting in. There are no windows, only an air vent on the ceiling, and a solid metal door, slid shut. The floor is tile, like a locker shower stall, in bright yellow ceramics.

Carlos looks down at himself. He's dressed in an orange hospital gown of a glossy material—vital fluid-repellant, never needing cleaning. His arms are bare, dark against the white-wrapped mattress.

The skin is unmarked, except for the IV line taped to his wrist. No pale veins line the flesh, and there is no pain when he inhales, when he moves his fingers, his bare toes. Though when he bends his neck, he can feel the metal edge of the Employee of the Month badge, still affixed over his carotid artery.

"This is important, Carlos," Dr. Tithoes says. "What do you remember?"

"I'm...not sure," Carlos says slowly. "What happened?"

Dr. Tithoes sighs, fingers drumming a troubled beat on his tablet's screen. "We're still piecing together the details. As best as we can tell, you suffered a relapse due to an interruption in your daily prescriptions. I was concerned this might happen—in our recent sessions, I've been suspecting you weren't properly benefiting from your regimen; your productivity seemed compromised. But I hadn't realized the extent..."

"The extent?" Carlos asks.

"It seems a minor accident in your lab triggered a flashback, and you fled from the facility. By the time you were found by the StrexCorp security team, you were completely delusional, suffering phantom pains, talking to people who weren't there. Do you remember any of that? Who you imagined you were speaking to, for instance?"

Dana. Tamika. But he hadn't imagined them. "Where was I found?"

The psychiatrist strokes his neatly trimmed beard, considering. Finally he says, "In a private room in one of the intimacy service centers. An unregistered center, as it happens. You're lucky you were found as quickly as you were."

"Lucky," Carlos repeats. He wonders what the psychiatrist would say, if asked what the Employee of the Month badge really was. What excuse would he fabricate. "So if I talk to you, you'll mark me sane? Approve me to return to work?"

"I certainly would like to!" Dr. Tithoes says encouragingly. "But I'll need your cooperation; I can't help you unless you show you're willing to help yourself. Please, Carlos, tell me everything you remember from last night. Whether it seems real to you now or not. Who you think you saw, what you believed was happening to you, where you thought you were going."

Carlos would like to fold his arms, to turn away. He settles for slouching back against the raised mattress. "No," he says.

"...No?"

"I'm not going to talk to you," Carlos says. "Whatever you do to me, I'm not going to tell you anything."

"Do to you? I'm only trying to help you heal—"

"I've healed enough," Carlos says. "In spite of your best efforts." He jerks ineffectually at his cuffed wrists. "If I were still a trusted employee, I wouldn't be tied to this bed. And I'm tired of playing these games. I won't to talk to you, so you might as well go ahead and tell them I'm awake, that I'm ready to be retrained again."

"Again?" The psychiatrist cocks his head in confusion. "You've never been retrained."

Carlos barks a laugh. For all his dread and terror, he's almost giddy. Maybe it's a residual effect of the sedative, or else something was in the ice water. Or maybe it's the relief of honesty, after so long, so many sessions with the psychiatrist. "I'm telling you, forget it. I know the truth—and I know that you've never told it to me. You've lied to me from our first meeting, manipulated me, you and every other Strex doctor _—doctor_ , how can any of you call yourselves that without choking on it?"

Dr. Tithoes leans forward, intent, earnest. "Carlos," he says, "I want you to listen to me. This hostility and paranoia, it's not real; it's merely a side-effect. Your regimen was disrupted, and now you're severely underdosed. Until your system stabilizes, we can't resume the pharmacological treatment. But you're a scientist, a rational person; you have to try to think logically. I am a doctor, yes; and yes, I'm a company employee as well, whose job it is to help other employees. In either case, why would I ever do anything to harm you, my patient?"

"So you're saying you've always been honest with me? That you've never told me anything untrue?"

The psychiatrist's brow furrows. "I've told you what you needed to hear, for you to be the best employee you could be. On occasion that required endorsing a flexible interpretation of past experiences. A damaged psyche can be fragile, incapable of enduring the trauma of blunt reality."

"You would know," Carlos says. "Since you—since Strex—were the ones who _damaged_ me—retrained me, broke my mind, to fit it into the mold of a perfect employee—"

Tithoes shakes his head. His usual professional smile has flattened into almost a straight line. "I admit, I don't know the full story of the injuries you suffered. Some of the specifics may have been elided from your records, for the sake of your psychological health. But I'm speaking to you now as one professional to another, when I assure you that you have never been retrained. I'm familiar with all levels of retraining, and having studied your brain scans, your cortex shows no lesions of even the most minimal techniques. It puzzled me, to be honest; given the accident as reported, I would've expected some basic neurological reconstruction."

"You're not going to win my trust by lying to me again," Carlos says.

"I am trying to earn your trust, but I'm not lying," Tithoes says. "Your case intrigued me; after our first meeting I called in a favor to access your complete scans. Here, I can show you the data," and he holds up his tablet, displaying a series of images of brain MRIs, bright colors outlining the various lobes.

The images could be faked, as could the psychiatrist's hopeful look. Or maybe they're not; maybe the man really is this ignorant. Carlos lets his head drop back against the pillow, shuts his eyes. "I hope you are lying to me," he says. "If you're not—then put that away. You shouldn't show it to me; I doubt it's something they want me to know." Though it's too late already, if this wasn't an approved ploy. The shiny black dot next to the ceiling vent is a camera lens; this room is wired for both audio and video, Carlos is sure, and equally sure there are people watching right now. And Dana isn't here, nor any bloodstones, to glitch the feed.

He wonders if Tithoes is a willing accomplice or a duped pawn. Maybe it shouldn't matter to him now, in these circumstances, but it does. Carlos the Scientist would care—this might be the last time he can, before he's retrained. "I didn't have a relapse," Carlos tells the psychiatrist, speaking quickly and clearly. "I'm not delusional, and everything I did was a conscious, deliberate choice. I decided myself to quit working for Strex. And I wasn't recaptured last night in any service center—I was outside of Desert Bluffs, trying to escape to Night Vale."

"Night Vale?" Tithoes sounds perplexed. "Quit...? What does that mean—"

Before he can ask any further questions, the door opens, admitting a pair of blue-uniformed guards. "Wait," Tithoes says, waving his tablet authoritatively, "my time's not up yet, I've just—"

The guards ignore the psychiatrist, shouldering past him to Carlos. One of them has a black hood in his hand; the other holds a taser.

"Night Vale," Carlos repeats to Tithoes, ducking his head around the guards. "Tell your superiors you got that much out of me."

He didn't say who he was with, or how he escaped Desert Bluffs. And from his location, his destination would have been obvious. It's no more knowledge than they already have—but maybe it'll be worth something, enough for Tithoes to prove himself a valued employee. Too good a psychiatrist to retrain.

The guards pull the hood over Carlos's eyes. They detach the IV, uncuff his wrists and haul him stumbling to his feet. When he starts to raise his hands, he feels the cold prongs of the taser press against his neck in mute warning.

He lowers his arms. A hand against his back shoves him forward, lurching in the direction of the door. Through the hood muffling his ears, he hears Tithoes saying, "I really can't recommend a standard interview; it risks destabilizing—"

The door snicks shut, cutting off the psychiatrist's protest.

 

* * *

 

Blinded by the hood, Carlos tries to follow the route by feel. The guards roughly escort him around a few corners and into an elevator, by the way his stomach dips; then through another door. They push him down into a seat, fasten padded cuffs around his wrists and ankles, and a belt across his sternum. Cold, latex-gloved hands touch his arms, his throat, gripping his chin as he tries to turn away.

Then they release him, and yank off the hood. The spotlight overhead is painfully bright; Carlos shuts his eyes against it.

 _"You will answer our questions promptly, honestly, and to the best of your ability,"_ intones a voice above him, metallic and expressionless. _"Cooperation will be rewarded; opposition will be corrected."_

Carlos cracks his lids, squints into the light. He is in a different room, no larger than the previous, with the same yellow tile floor and solid white walls on three sides. The fourth wall in front of him is a mirror, reflecting Carlos and the man in a white coat bending over him, taping electrodes to his temples to match those attached to his arms. When the man straightens up, Carlos vaguely recognizes his face; he was the technician at his questioning after the bloodstone demonstration.

"A polygraph exam?" Carlos asks.

The jolt from the electrodes is more surprising than painful, compared to the acid stimulation of a supervisor's inspiration rod, or the agonizing chill of the white veins under his skin. _"You will only answer questions, not ask them,"_ instructs the metallic voice. Carlos slews his eyes up to the speaker grill on the ceiling from where it issues. Its assured authority rings a vague bell, like the technician's face; but between the tinniness of the loudspeaker and the stilted, scripted diction, Carlos can't place the speaker. _"What is your name?"_

Carlos frowns. "You should have that much information already."

_"We require verification for our records. What is your name?"_

"Can't you ask Dr. Tithoes? He was just talking to—"

The shock is still mild, a reminder more than a punishment. _"How old are you?"_

"Seriously, what's the point of interrogating me, if you don't even know who I am?"

The technician, watching his monitors, shakes his head. The next voltage increase is enough to make Carlos twitch, as the voice overhead repeats, _"You will only answer questions, not ask them. What is your profession?"_

Carlos grits his jaw. This is going to hurt. "All right," he says. "I'm a theoretical physicist. I'm a hundred and ten years old, and my name is J. Robert Oppenheimer—"

The electrodes crackle, and Carlos shudders, even braced for it. _"Cooperation will be rewarded,"_ the interrogator insists. _"You will answer our questions promptly, honestly, and to the best of your ability."_

"No," Carlos snarls, stretching his lips back from his teeth, "I won't. If you're asking those questions, then you need a new baseline to calibrate your equipment, to verify whatever you get out of me—but I won't cooperate; I won't help Strex, not ever again—"

The next shock cuts his words off short, his head jerking back as his spine locks into a tortured curve. The taste of blood spreads through his mouth from his bitten tongue; but it doesn't stop Carlos from grinning, wild, triumphant, as no employee handbook would ever approve.

 

* * *

 

Eventually the interrogation session ends, without any warning or signal. By then they've asked him about his escape, about Night Vale, about the falsification of his daily EOD reports, skipping between topics, presumably to keep him bewildered, off-guard. Carlos resorts to answering every question posed to him with an element, in consecutive order, along with their atomic mass. It helps to focus on his place in the periodic table and ignore the content of the questions entirely.

He's just gasped "Antimony, 121.76," and is struggling through the electricity-induced spasm to recall the mass of tellurium, when the voice overhead, forgoing another inquiry, says simply, _"That will be all for now. Thank you for your assistance in this inquiry."_

Carlos almost replies, 'You're welcome,' before he registers the words. He jerks upright in the chair, chest pressed to the straps as he chokes through gritted teeth, "I didn't assist you with anything—!"

There is no reply. The guards step forward to put the black hood back down over his eyes. Carlos is shaky from the electricity's aftermath, his legs folding under him when the guards pull him upright. Without giving him a chance to find his footing, they drag him out the door.

Sightless and disoriented, Carlos can't tell if they bring him back to the same recovery room, or if it's an entirely different location. The mattress they drop him on feels the same, anyway, as do the restraints fastened around his wrists. He feels them press the tape of the IV line back in place over his hand; then he hears their footsteps retreating, hears the door slide shut.

They didn't take off the mask. The dark behind it is absolute, not like the night out on the mesa; there are no stars here, no moon appearing above the distant horizon. However he turns his head or strains his eyes, not a shadow or a glimmer breaks the uniform blackness.

"Where is this?" Carlos asks, turning his head blindly. His nose and mouth aren't covered, so he can speak freely, but his eyelashes brush the hood's cotton when he blinks. "What are you going to do to me now?"

His voice echoes off close walls, but no one answers. He listens intently to the stillness, but hears no footsteps, no voices, no breathing. Cool drafts from an air conditioner gust across his bare arms in fits and starts, but the room is silent. If he is being observed, it's over the cameras, not in person.

"Is this meant to frighten me?" Carlos asks, not defiantly but genuinely curious. He's never found sensory deprivation to be especially arduous; he once relied on a sleep mask and a white noise generator to get through the night, before Strex's nightly doses.

He tries pulling at his cuffed hands, but can't get the slack to lift himself off the mattress. The IV pinches his wrist, but he's too tightly bound to be able to drag out the chute, no matter how he twists his arm.

"I'm not going to tell you anything," he tells his hypothetical observers. "I haven't told you anything—I didn't assist you." To prove it he returns to reciting the periodic table—tellurium, then iodine, then xenon, speaking the scientific basics aloud to the empty room.

After a while, the regularity of the recitation and the dark monotony lulls him. The erratic tremors from the electricity's sting have subsided, and his eyelids beneath the hood are becoming heavy. It might be induced, the IV dripping a sedative into his system; or else it's the fatigue of the interrogation. Either way, he needs rest. Carlos lets his eyes shut, settling his head into the pillow.

Then he gasps and jerks upright, as a siren blares and the bed tilts sharply under him. He scrabbles to catch himself with his bound hands, as the mattress lurches to a halt, leaving his head tipped back towards the floor.

The siren continues to shriek, deafeningly close to his ears, for another minute, then abruptly goes mute. In the subsequent quiet, Carlos can hear his own heart thumping in his skull. Air compressors softly hiss, lifting the mattress level. Then silence is restored.

It stays so until Carlos relaxes again; then once more the bed drops, tipping him feet first this time, and the siren wails back to life.

The third time, he tests it deliberately, lying still and forcing himself to slow his breathing. The drop to a resting rhythm triggers the alarm, jolting him up.

Not sensory deprivation, then. But grad school educated him in sleep deprivation as well.

He clears his throat and finishes the periodic table. Then he goes through it again backwards. Then he harkens back to his years as a grad student and starts a lecture on the basic principles of quantum mechanics. If anyone's listening, he might as well educate them. It's trickier without a whiteboard to write out the formulae, and his recitation probably transposes a few figures here and there; but he does his best.

The IV drip must be hydrating him, because his dry mouth does not become a worst thirst. His vocal cords are strained, however; he only makes it through half a semester's worth of the advanced physics curriculum before his voice gives out entirely. 

Carlos tries to continue the lecture in his head, but his mind is starting to wander, not to science, but everything he's been trying so hard to avoid thinking about. Dana's bright smile, Tamika Flynn's so-dark eyes. Bloodstones and oranges. And the incomparable, beautiful depth of Cecil's voice.

Though Carlos keeps his mouth sealed shut, it feels wrong even to think about Night Vale. Dangerous, as if the microphone that was doubtless recording his voice might capture his thoughts as well. Might steal them from him, take back even these few new memories he's fought to gather.

But as the hours in the sleepless dark wear on, Carlos's thoughts drift out of his control, spiraling into insomniac incoherency. In this continuous dark, he can almost imagine that he's listening to Cecil's broadcast; can almost pretend he's lying in his bed in the company dorm, with the radio whispering in his ear.

Tamika Flynn must have made it back by now—if she wasn't recaptured, but she wasn't; his interrogation would have been more targeted, if so. How would Cecil report that victory? _'This morning you may have heard there was a casualty, a prisoner lost—lies, all lies; she is not lost, she is found, she has come home again, to Night Vale!'_

And Tamika will have brought back the orange pip with her, will have brought it to Dana's family, so Dana can appear before them. Even if they won't be able to hug her, they could see her smile again, hear her cry their names. Perhaps Cecil will employ her again on his show; a phantom intern seems appropriate for a roving pirate broadcast.

_'And now someone you maybe thought you wouldn't hear from again—I know I feared that I wouldn't—but here is Dana! She's not quite as solid a presence as once she was; but nobody's perfect, nor would we want them to be...'_

What else has Cecil heard by now—what have Tamika and Dana told him? Did they mention Carlos, or were they kind enough to spare their friend the renewed grief? All they had to say was that the Strex scientist who had done Night Vale so much damage is no longer an employee. No longer a threat.

 _'Our bloodstones were taken from us, but at least more won't be now,'_ Cecil might be saying. _'We are safe now from the traitor, the outsider we so foolishly trusted with our secrets and our hearts..."_

The siren's howl and the backwards jolt of the bed knock Carlos back to confused awareness. He yanks at his cuffed wrists, reaching for the hidden headphones he only belatedly recalls he does not have.

They must have searched Carlos's dorm room by now, found the radio. It's ridiculous, but his heart clenches to think of it in the company's hands. They'll examine it, disassemble it to make sure it hides no secrets. Then destroy it—non-Strex technology is illegal, and besides they couldn't risk anyone possibly listening to it, possibly hearing Cecil, speaking for a town that should not exist, not in Strex's perfect future.

The radio is not Cecil. And Cecil is obviously aware that his enemies might be listening to his illicit broadcasts; Carlos's radio cannot put him in more danger than he's already in. But in Carlos's muddled exhaustion it feels like a betrayal. One more thing that Strex has taken from Cecil—that Carlos allowed them to take. That Carlos gave to them.

 _The traitor_...he can almost hear Cecil's voice saying it, an echo of an unreal, but all too plausible, memory. Carlos swallows around the aching lump in his throat. For all his desire to return to Night Vale, to see Cecil again, he hardly considered who it was that would be returning. That it wasn't Carlos the Scientist trying to get back home, but a Strex researcher, going to a place he doesn't even remember.

He told Dana and Tamika he didn't want Cecil mourning him twice over; but was that the truth? Or had Carlos just not wanted Cecil to know the reality? Better for Cecil to love him as a dead hero, than hate him as a living collaborator.

Not again, Carlos vows to himself. Never again. It's too late for him to die a hero; but he won't betray Night Vale again.

As if in answer to his resolve, Carlos hears, muffled by the mask, the click of the door and the clump of boots on the tile floor, as the guards come to take him back to the interrogation chamber.

 

* * *

 

Carlos tries mathematics this time, first answering the interrogator's questions with triple- and quadruple-digit primes, then starting on the Fibonacci sequence. He's tired enough that the long addition takes significant concentration, and he keeps dropping digits with every jolt from the electrodes, curses the disruption aloud.

There is scientific evidence that use of profanity can stimulate endorphins and reduce pain. By the end of the session Carlos has given up on numbers in favor of going through every curse and swear he knows in any language. It's depressing how much Spanish he's forgotten, but rooming with Ken Liang for two years of grad school provides a lot of applicable Mandarin.

The last few oaths that he spits out, he doesn't even remember learning—he doesn't recall ever taking a course in Modified Sumerian.

Finally they give up, have the guards drag the mask back over his eyes and haul him back to the bed in the silent chamber.

The dark is a comfort, after the harsh lights; if not restful, with the siren shrieking every time his eyes drift close. Carlos lies on the bed, jaw clenched against involuntary muscle spasms as he counts the seconds, keeping time by the heartbeat thumping in his ears.

He loses track a few times, but he estimates it's been at least four hours, before they bring him back to the interrogation chamber and resume.

 

* * *

 

After that, Carlos thinks the interruptions between interrogation sessions get shorter, though he's not certain. It's ever more difficult to track the seconds. His pulse is erratic following a session, and he loses count in the dark, his exhausted mind wandering from the abstraction of numbers no matter how he tries to focus.

It may not matter. As far as he can determine, time isn't working anyway. According to scientific principle, day and night should come at reasonably predictable intervals, but now there's no consistency. The noon-bright spotlight glares in his eyes, or else he's trapped under the hood's inescapable midnight; he's shuddering at the electrodes' burn, or else he's deafened by a siren's wail.

But there is no way to determine when one state will replace the other, or if either will end at all. The cycle has repeated six or seven times, or maybe eight, or twelve; but repetition doesn't guarantee results. Or maybe Carlos only imagines that anything has ever changed. When it's light, he can't remember what darkness is like; when it's dark, he can't bear to think of the light.

If time isn't broken, then maybe space is; or maybe it's spacetime itself that has been warped, entangled around itself. Or else none of it is real, but only a trick of perception. So that even when Carlos is sitting in the chair now, he's in darkness, his eyes squeezed shut and the spotlight's yellow glare throbbing red under his eyelids. And even when he's lying in the darkness now, he still hears questions, echoing through his head if not in his ears.

He's not supposed to answer the questions, not in the light or in the dark; though he doesn't recall why he shouldn't, his obstinacy reduced to a conditioned reflex. But then, he doesn't know why he would want to answer, either. _"Cooperation will be rewarded,"_ the voice above insists; but the only reward Carlos receives is pain. And that he's granted whatever he manages to say.

In the interrogation room, it's always the same voice; but the voices he hears in the dark change. Sometimes the recorded metallic monotone is replaced by a more personable, friendly tone—Johnny Peterson, he recognizes, the executive coaxing him, _"Just tell us what you know, Carlos, and this will all be over..."_

And sometimes Carlos is the one asking the questions, thrashing against the straps binding him to the chair, as he cries out with his voice quavering, _"What is this? Where am I? Who are you? I don't understand, I don't know what's going on—!"_

Which isn't true, because Carlos knows this is an interrogation, and he's in Strex's Institute for Employee Advancement, and he knows who Peterson is. And yet spacetime is twisted, because he's not lying when he says this; he's bewildered and terrified.

But that couldn't have happened; Carlos wasn't here before—why would he be; he was a good employee. And he hadn't met Johnny Peterson before that party. Hadn't met him before he came to Desert Bluffs—

_—"Why did you come to Desert Bluffs?"_

"I—I needed a change of pace. Put it all behind me and move on..."

Carlos didn't mean to speak aloud, is not entirely sure he did. His head is pounding, a throbbing pressure so overwhelming that he hardly notices the electricity's sting, not until it releases him, the arch of his spine relaxing so that he can breathe again.

If the electrodes are on him, then he must be in the chair. Carlos forces open his eyes and sees himself in the one-way mirror, his bound form blurred and wavering. The interrogator's voice overhead admonishes, _"Answer the question posed to you. Where did the radio come from?"_

But at the same time, somewhere else—or in the same space, sometime else?—Johnny Peterson is asking, _"Why did you come to Desert Bluffs? What were you looking for? What were you trying to do at the radio station?"_

"I don't know," Carlos says, "I don't understand," because he has never been to the station. Kevin never invited Carlos to his workplace in person; even in this confused condition, he would remember that.

Except time is broken, because Carlos also can see Desert Bluff's Community Radio in his memory, a disjointed vision of himself standing amid the steel and glass caging Strex's most advanced technology, slick and wet and viscous. 

He knows both are true, and that both cannot be true; and the impossible contradiction hurts more than the electricity. 

The voice overhead demands, _"A portable radio was found in your room; where did you acquire this illegal technology?"_ and Carlos recognizes the individual words, but he can't make sense of the sentences, groping for meaning like a blind man trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle by touch. A radio was in his room—but he was in the radio, in the station...

He was standing in a small, cramped room, gore-streaked linoleum underfoot, and before him dusty metal shelves, stacked with small plastic cases. He was lightheaded, woozy, and as he grabbed for a shelf to steady himself, his trembling hands knocked over the neat columns, the cases cracking open as they fell, spilling old cassette tapes onto the bloody floor.

The door burst open, Strex's blue-uniformed guards kicking it wide, trampling the tapes under their boots as they aimed their weapons at Carlos's head. At their threatening shouts, he raised his hands, shaking, empty, clutching at nothing...

It feels as if his head is splitting, his mind fracturing along the fault lines in his memory.

 _"Where did you acquire it?"_ the interrogator asks again. Carlos knows that voice, he realizes, in a moment of stinging clarity. Not Johnny Peterson, but he has heard it before. At the hospital, Dr. Talbot sitting beside his bed, telling him, _"What you need is a change of pace. Put it all behind you and move on—"_

No—no, Carlos was never at any hospital; he'd figured out that much already. Time cartwheels around him, dizzying, deceitful. He was in Night Vale, and then he was in the Desert Bluffs radio station; and then he was in this chamber or one like it, strapped into a chair with Talbot's recorded voice issuing over the loudspeaker, _What you need is a change of pace. Put it all behind you and move on—What you need is a change of pace. Put it all behind you and move on—_

But there was never any accident to put behind him, no hospital to move on from. There was this room, and other rooms with tidy beds with manacles, and windows opening onto nothing but more gray walls. There were needles and pills and IV drips, and in that medicated fog, video feeds were projected over his eyes, calm confident voices played in his ears, showing and telling him things about himself. Sensible things, logical things that could have been true. _You were in an accident. You work for StrexCorp. You are a loyal, productive employee, as all the company's employees are._

Over and over and over, until Carlos had memorized them, could repeat them back to himself, could tell himself they were true, or at least could be true. Because he is a scientist and scientists need some explanation, some hypothesis to start from, even if it's later disproved.

But they were not true. The truth is there is no hypothesis, no explanation. There is nothing, nothing at all: a great barren emptiness in his mind, in his life, two years vanished from his memory. And time may be broken, or maybe isn't real at all; but the loss of those years is like a hole inside himself, a chasm opened in his mind, yawning wide and deep and dark as the abyssal shadows at the mesa's base.

Carlos is distantly aware that he is no longer alone in the interrogation chamber. Anonymous figures in surgical masks stand over him, doubled by their reflections in the mirror. A gloved hand grasps his chin to turn his head, shines a light into his eyes. It hurts, but not enough for Carlos to flinch or blink.

Voices, muffled by their masks, confer in urgent tones:

"—failed to sufficiently suppress activity in the prefrontal cortex—"

"—catastrophic breakdown and rejection of the introduced confabulation—"

"—continuing this interview strategy is contraindicated if the subject is to remain intact for the—"

Carlos hears the words, but cannot piece together their meaning. Brightness glares in his eyes, but his mind is going dark despite that piercing light; he is falling, and no siren sounds loudly enough to wake him.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strex is still terrible. Content warning for this chapter for a suicide attempt.

Carlos is standing before the counter, holding a knife.

For a disorienting instant he has no idea where he is, what he's doing. Then he blinks, and it passes.

It's not the first time this has happened today. A dissociative front is moving in from the east; tomorrow morning's expected heatwave should dispel it, though while it lasts he should drop by the lab, take some readings—

But not tonight, Carlos reminds himself with a shake of his head. Right now he's got something more important to do. He makes a mental note to text Rochelle at the lab, then turns back to the task at hand.

Adjusting his grip on the knife to maximize effectiveness, he raises it over his target—

Wait. Something is wrong here.

"Cecil?" Carlos calls to the living room. "Are the eggplants supposed to be paisley?"

"Oh, yes, that's the safest pattern you can get them in, this time of year," Cecil replies, raising his voice over the TV.

"Okay, great."

"Would you like any help in there?" Cecil asks.

"No, it's my turn to make dinner, I've got this," Carlos tells him, and resumes slicing the eggplant. He's got a pan laid out, and the water for the pasta is already heating on the stove. "It'll be about half an hour." Parmesan usually takes longer to bake, but that's because most cooks aren't also scientists with access to high-temperature rocket fuels.

Carlos finishes with one eggplant, starts on the other, idly humming the elements song. He's in a good mood; today's experiments went well, and Cecil's radio show...

Carlos's chopping falters. What was Cecil's show about today? He must have listened to it; he always does. He remembers the weather; but the show itself—"Cecil," Carlos calls again, "remind me, what was the main report of your show today?"

"Ah, the show," Cecil says. "To be honest, I'm not positive—no one is, I asked all the interns—but I believe the glow cloud—ALL HAIL—dropped by. Actually, about that, I was wondering..."

Whatever Cecil's question is, Carlos doesn't catch it; he's staring at the knife in his hand. It fits in his palm, its grip worn and familiar; but he's just realized that he doesn't remember ever seeing it before.

He looks around the kitchen—his kitchen; but he doesn't remember stepping foot in it before. It's bigger than the kitchens in any of his apartments, and there are more pots and pans than he's ever owned, more than any one person would need. There are two cast-iron frying pans—why would anyone need two? Even the communal kitchen in the Strex dorm only had one.

"So, if you'd like to run an experiment, I could ask," Cecil is saying as he comes from the living room, his socks padding on the wooden floor. Though Carlos doesn't remember living anywhere with hardwood floors. His room at the dorm has flat carpeting, and his lab has tile, like the interrogation chamber, only not in yellow...

"—Carlos?" Cecil asks from the kitchen doorway. "Is something the matter?"

Carlos doesn't turn around, continues staring down at the knife and the cutting board and the half-sliced eggplant. "Yes," he says. "Or, no. It depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On whether I'm hallucinating, or merely dreaming," Carlos says. "The former is potentially dangerous, to say nothing of its implications on my psychological health; the latter is relatively harmless. But I'm unsure how to differentiate between them."

"Hmm," Cecil says. "That is a conundrum."

Carlos sets down the knife besides the sliced eggplant. "You're not going to tell me that it's neither? That this is real?"

"Why would I tell you that?" Cecil sounds confused. "Which isn't to say that I'd _never_ lie to you, if it were necessary, say in the case of a City Council ordinance. But I wouldn't unless I have to."

Carlos shuts his eyes, expels a shaky breath. When he leans back against the counter, it feels solid, real, the granite top smooth and cool under his hand.

"Can you do it scientifically?" Cecil asks.

"What?"

"Figure out whether it's a dream or a hallucination," Cecil says. His voice in Carlos's ears is calm, encouraging. It's almost like hearing him on the radio, but not quite, and not only because Carlos isn't wearing headphones. Cecil's voice is a bit softer, a bit less measured. Warmer, in a way that's familiar to Carlos, though he can't remember Cecil sounding quite like that before.

Other than in Carlos's dreams, that is.

"The scientific method can't be applied to dreams," Carlos says. "Or hallucinations.  
Scientific proof depends on objective observation; and both dreams and delusions are subjective by definition."

"Oh," Cecil says, sounding disappointed. "That's too bad. Though," and his voice cheers up, "if it is subjective, then can't it be whichever you want?"

Carlos shakes his head. "That's not how it works—"

"But couldn't it be?" Cecil's arms loop around Carlos's waist, tugging him into a loose embrace, comfortable but not confining. "If it's all in your mind, what would you like it to be?"

Eyes still closed, Carlos slips his own arms around Cecil. He leans in, rests his forehead on the juncture of Cecil's shoulder, the warm skin revealed by his tunic's loose neck. "I'd _like_ it to be real," Carlos says, whispering the words into Cecil's clavicle. "I wish I were really here now, in this house, with you."

Cecil sighs, low and soft. "As do I, dear Carlos," he murmurs into Carlos's hair—it's longer than it should be, Carlos realizes, falling about his ears in the usual calamitous curls. Completely impractical for the desert.

"Maybe this is a dream after all," Carlos remarks. If he were hallucinating, wouldn't it make more sense for his physical body to remain in its actual state? Or does that seem more logical merely because he wants it to be...

"Why does it matter, anyhow?" Cecil inquires. "What's the problem with an occasional hallucination?"

"Other than the risk of injury, due to me misapprehending my surroundings?" Carlos says. "If I am hallucinating, it might have been deliberately induced. Something to get me to let down my guard, encourage me to talk, by making me think I'm somewhere safe, talking to somebody I trust."

"I didn't think of that," Cecil says.

"I was captured by Strex," Carlos says. "They were questioning me; that's the last thing I remember. It's not an unreasonable supposition that this is an advanced interrogation tactic. In which case I should take precautions."

"I see," Cecil says, "that makes sense." He's quiet for a moment. One of his hands has found its way under Carlos's shirt, tracing idle circles on his hip, and it's taking increasing effort for Carlos not to press in closer, lean in to that caress. If this is a hallucination, that would be embarrassing.

"How about this?" Cecil says at last. "I don't ask you any questions, and you don't tell me anything. That way, you won't accidentally give away any secrets, if you are hallucinating."

"But I want to talk to you," Carlos says. "There's so much I want to know, want to ask you about—there's so much I've forgotten—"

Cecil's arms draw him nearer. "I can talk to you," he says. "About anything you want. If you're the one asking the questions, you won't be giving anything away, right? What do you want to know?"

"I..." Carlos knows he shouldn't, but it's too tempting, with Cecil's voice in his ears, close and dark and so warm. "This kitchen—where is it? Is this my house in Night Vale?"

"It's ours," Cecil says. "We live together—were living together. It was your idea, actually," and he tells Carlos about the condos, the black cubes and what was inside them, and what Carlos said to him when they emerged. And Carlos laughs, wry but meaning it, too, because while he doesn't remember the words Cecil quotes, he can recognize them as his, as something he would say.

Cecil laughs with him, silently, but Carlos can feel his chest moving. He holds Cecil close enough to realize it when the chuckling becomes the hiccups of suppressed sobs. "Cecil? What's wrong?"

"I miss you." Cecil shudders once, his shoulders rigid under Carlos's arms. "I miss you so much, Carlos."

Carlos's own chest aches. He takes Cecil's face in his hands, going by touch with his eyes squeezed shut, kisses his lips and the salt on his cheeks, whispering, "It's all right, Cecil, it's okay, I'm here—"

Cecil gulps, a harsh unnatural sound in his beautiful voice. He wraps his arms back around Carlos, says roughly, "I know—I know you are, Carlos; but I wish that you were _there_ as well. That you'd be with me when I wake up, and not..."

"But you can't wake up," Carlos reassures him. "You're my dream, only a figment—a projection of what I imagine it would be like, to be in a relationship with the man I hear on the radio. Perhaps influenced by partially recovered memories, but you're not really here with me; you're not real."

"Right." Cecil sniffles, swallows to clear his throat and says more firmly, "Of course, yes. That's what I am."

Carlos takes a deep breath, lets it go. "Cecil?"

"Yes, Carlos?"

"You're _not_ real...are you?"

There is a long pause. "If you're starting to remember me," Cecil says at last, "then perhaps you've remembered that I'm the sort of man who might be able to do this. Who could appear in someone's dreams—in your dreams. If I had good reason—it would have to be a _really_ good reason; invasive dream-walking is hardly lawful, even between boyfriends, especially for a professional reporter. All the moreso when it's between the mortal realm and the hereafter; breaking the sanctity of the veil is all _kinds_ of legal trouble..."

"But you would do it, if you could."

"To see my Carlos again? Absolutely."

"Unless I'm only dreaming that you're saying this."

"Unless that, yes."

"...I think I'm in love with you, Cecil," Carlos says. "I don't remember you—I don't _know_ you—but I love you. Is that insane?"

"I fell in love with you before I knew you," Cecil says. "At first sight, pretty much. And that was definitely insane, but I never regretted it. Even now I don't regret it."

"But I'm a scientist," Carlos says. "I'm supposed to be rational."

"Or else you're intelligent enough to know when it's better to be mad. Either way, I'm glad you're in love with me."

"But I can't—it's not—this isn't at first sight; I don't even know what you look like, Cecil!"

"Then why don't you open your eyes and see?"

"No." Carlos shakes his head, keeping his eyes tightly shut. "Because I _don't_ know what you look like, Cecil. I know what your voice sounds like, well enough to reasonably extrapolate how you might talk to me. But I don't want to imagine your appearance—to picture an ideal lover, when it wouldn't be you, couldn't be the real you, since I don't remember you."

"Unless you do remember?" Cecil suggests. "Maybe you're beginning to recall what I look like. You seem to remember what I _feel_ like," and he tilts his hips into Carlos, a teasing, inviting thrust that makes Carlos quiver.

"That's more of an—inference," he groans. "Predicated on basic physiological responses. It's not the same as looking into your eyes and seeing them as what color I want them to be."

"And what color is that?"

"I have no idea," Carlos says. Cecil is a voice on the radio, irresistible, impossible; to assign a fixed form to that voice is beyond even a scientist's deductive reasoning.

This kitchen they're standing in, this house, Carlos might have independently conceived, a postulation of the sort of home he can imagine having, imagine sharing. Or else he is remembering it, a momentary breakthrough. Either way, it won't be that great a disappointment, if it bears no resemblance to reality.

But Cecil...Carlos doesn't want a delusion, a subconscious archetype. He wants the real thing—the real man he fell in love with. The man he's falling in love with all over again, even if only in his imagination.

"Carlos," Cecil says, and there is a part—a significant part—of Carlos that does not care if this is a dream or a hallucination, does not care that he is being addressed by a figment of his imagination, as long as he can keep hearing that voice say his name.

But Cecil's hands are slipping off Carlos's waist, cool air coming between them as he steps away.

"Wait, Cecil," Carlos says, turning his closed eyes in the direction of his voice, blindly reaching for him, "stay, please—"

"I would," Cecil says. His voice is softer, no longer murmured into Carlos's ears. Carlos's hands don't brush against him, passing through empty space. "If I could, I would—I would've stayed with you; but you went away and didn't return, and Night Vale needed me too much for me to follow..."

And Carlos knows why Night Vale needed him, what danger threatened them. He shakes his head, blurts out, "Cecil, everything I did for Strex, I didn't—"

" _Carlos_ ," Cecil says again, but he's out of reach, and his voice sounds now like it does over the radio, distant and unapproachable.

"I'm sorry!" Carlos cries, and opens his eyes.

"Sorry about what?" Johnny Peterson asks.

The Strex executive is sitting by Carlos's bed, watching Carlos with open concern.

"I..." Carlos goes to rub his face, remembers his hands are cuffed and stops.

Then blinks and looks again, raises his unbound hand up before his eyes. This bed has no manacles, only silky yellow sheets. A lamp casts soft light on comfortable furnishings: a wooden nightstand holding a vase of daffodils, and the padded chair Peterson is sitting in. Checked curtains are quietly drawn over the window on the far wall.

"What...where am I?" Carlos rasps. His throat is scratchy, and his head is slightly sore. The pain is minimal, but not softened; he doesn't feel drugged, but rested and alert.

Peterson stands, brushing invisible lint off his slacks. "Why don't you get cleaned up," and he nods at the open door of the bathroom behind him, "and then we'll talk."

He exits, shutting the door behind him. Carlos doesn't hear the click of a lock engaging when it closes.

He gets up from the bed, cautiously, but though his legs are initially rubbery, he makes it to the bathroom without much trouble. It's large and luxurious, all white marble and gold, every fixture polished to an immaculate shine. There's a ceiling fresco of a stylized sun, and a mirror hangs over the sink, but there's nothing behind the glass when Carlos pulls it back from the wall, no camera lenses or one-way windows.

The electronic shower has a dozen settings. Carlos turns it up hot and hard, to buffet away the aches and twinges.

As he stands under the water, he thinks back. The dream he just awoke from is still vivid in his senses—Cecil's voice in his ear, Cecil's arms around him...Carlos swallows, hastily hits the button to lower the shower temperature. Just because he can't find any cameras now doesn't mean he isn't being watched.

The memories of his last reality before the dream are more uncertain; he was so sleep-deprived he'd been hallucinating, and picking apart what actually happened from what he imagined was happening is a challenge. He didn't tell Dr. Talbot or the other interrogators too much, he doesn't think. He'd been too far gone, hopefully incoherent.

Before that, before all of this...Carlos braces himself, forcing himself to think of the hospital, those foggy months following the accident.

But the headache doesn't return. Nor do the memories of the hospital—not as they were, imprecise but convincing. Now they're like the details of a movie that wasn't terribly engaging, unrealistic and unimportant.

Instead he remembers the interrogation chamber, the drugs and the doctors— _Put it all behind you and move on—_

Carlos shudders, shoves his head under the cool water.

And before that...nothing. Nearly two years of his life, but he cannot recall a single moment of it.

It's unfair, that the torture of his captivity is so clear now, but not what he really wants to know. Carlos has always had a good memory—for certain things, at least; more than one girlfriend asked him why he could memorize the first hundred digits of pi but couldn't remember her birthday, but that wasn't the issue, really. If asked, he knew the dates; it was their application that he forgot. The personal details of his insignificant life were never as important to keep in mind as science, as the truths of the universe.

But it's the personal truths he strains for now, and cannot find.

The last thing he remembers, before he came to Desert Bluffs, was being on the other side of the country. Working the last months of a grant he was privately hoping wouldn't be extended, to give him the excuse to leave, even if he had nowhere promising to go...unless StrexCorp accepted his application...

It could have been four months ago, not two years. 

Except in that dream, Carlos was standing in a familiar kitchen, making dinner with a knife he'd used before. Trying now, he can't bring a picture of either to mind; but the feeling of familiarity lasts beyond the dream.

And when he lathers himself up, the scars on his chest are still there, ridged under his fingers. He has additional muscle mass as well, corded and wiry—why hadn't he noticed that before, that a supposed year in a coma left him in the best physical shape of his life? And yet it still feels like his own body, accustomed and ordinary. His mind doesn't remember those two years, but his body does.

As his body remembers Cecil, even if only in dreams...

The yellow towels are thick and fluffy as cotton balls. Under them Carlos finds a neatly folded change of clothes from his own drawer back in the company dorm. He dresses quickly, exits the bathroom. There is a white lab coat hanging on the room's door, his size. Carlos puts it on, then tries the door's chrome handle. It turns smoothly, and the door swings open.

Behind it, there are no guards, nor a prison cell. Instead he steps into an executive office, tastefully appointed in autumnal ochers and burgundies, glowing in the sunlight cast through the broad picture windows. Johnny Peterson is working at a wide walnut desk, but at Carlos's entrance he sets down his tablet, comes around the desk to usher him inside. "Make yourself comfortable," he tells Carlos, waving him to a tufted settee upholstered in buttery Italian leather, sun-warmed as skin when Carlos sits down.

"What's your poison?" Peterson asks.

Carlos starts, twisting around to stare at the executive. Peterson holds up a decanter of some expensive liquor, tilts it suggestively.

Carlos swallows, makes himself say, "Just—just water, please."

"Coming right up." Peterson pours a finger of the amber alcohol and a tumbler of water, drops ice in both and joins Carlos on the settee. It's wide enough for there to be a little space between them, but Carlos still has to struggle not to press back against the arm of the couch, away from the executive.

He accepts the glass from Peterson, forces himself to take a polite sip. The water is cold and pure; if it's drugged, it's with something tasteless.

"So how are you feeling, Carlos?" Peterson asks.

It was only a sip, but Carlos chokes on it, coughs and wheezes with his eyes burning.

Peterson pats his back helpfully. "That bad, huh," he remarks. "I can't tell you how sorry I am. I told them that you wouldn't respond well to a standard debriefing, but, well, you're a scientist yourself; you can appreciate how some people have to find out things for themselves. Though I didn't expect it would turn out _that_ badly."

Carlos wraps both trembling hands around the glass, before he drops it. "What is this?" he demands. "What's going on? Where am I?"

As soon as the words leave his mouth he recognizes them. Remembers, with stark, brutal clarity, fighting against the straps holding him down, as he shouted at his unseen interrogator behind the one-way mirror.

Four months ago, that would have been. And it was Peterson behind the mirror, though Carlos didn't know his voice then.

Peterson doesn't remark on the parallel now. He just says, "You're in my office." He nods toward the door. "That's my private suite, for napping during an all-nighter. Or more...social relaxation techniques. Either way, don't want to get stains on the leather," and he pats the settee. "As for what you're doing here, well, I thought you deserved a look at your future. Your potential future, I should say. The perfect life you're meant to live, that StrexCorp can give you."

Carlos stares around the office, uncomprehending. " _My_ future...?"

"Your future as a company executive," Peterson says, smiling his polished, sanctioned smile. "Now, I know you've only been with us for a few months—though we've accepted and recorded your assignment retroactively for two years—but in that time, and especially in the last few weeks, you've shown the initiative and creative, outside-the-box thinking we need in our senior staff.

"Like your work with the oranges—that was magnificent. You nearly had me fooled, and I headed the initial team trying to sell those damn transdimensional time-bombs! Right up until you made that woman go poof, I was sure you actually did believe they disintegrated their targets. Though as it stands, banishing her to an unidentified location of no return...that's just the kind of lateral problem-solving that'll make you a perfect executive."

Carlos doesn't know what to say. His mind is blank; there's a roar like wind rushing in his ears.

"Oh, come now, Carlos." Peterson makes a tutting click with his tongue. "You should be leaping to accept. Think of everything you've accomplished as just a researcher; imagine what you could do with all of Strex's resources at your disposal! Like your friend Dr. Chaibancha—Nisa, was it? Or Dr. Blanchard—haven't figured out yet what you were doing with him, but I'm sure it'll prove interesting. You know what we are, how powerful we are, how far our reach spreads. As a scientist, you can appreciate all you could do with that power. All you could learn. And as an executive, you'd have so many more opportunities; you could accomplish so much more. Here in Desert Bluffs, or anywhere else you'd like. Night Vale, for example."

Carlos freezes, as if that wind in his ears has chilled his blood to solid ice. Through numb lips he forces out, "What—what do you—"

"That's where you were trying to escape to, wasn't it," Peterson says. "Trying to get back to Night Vale. Tell me, how much do you remember about it?"

"I won't—" Carlos catches his breath, shakes his head. "I'm not telling you anything."

"Of course you won't." Peterson takes a sip from his tumbler. His eyes are on Carlos, measuring, unreadable. "Forget I asked. I'm assuming you know enough to think of Night Vale as your home, more than Desert Bluffs. Which it could be again! You could set up your office there—we could use an executive with local connections. Lauren hasn't been making many friends."

"I wouldn't—I'd never be allowed to go there," Carlos denies. "No one so much as mentioned Night Vale to me before now; why would the company ever assign me to a position like that?"

"It wouldn't be given to just any new executive, no; but you'd be hitting the ground running. There aren't that many executives who get your opportunity for promotion. Heck, you play your cards right, you'll be _my_ boss by next week."

"What cards? I was just being interrogated—"

Peterson flicks his index finger towards Carlos's neck. Carlos reaches up, touches the Employee of the Month badge.

"The month is up in four days," Peterson says. "If you can prove yourself worthy by then, the job's yours. And you're most of the way there."

Carlos runs his fingers over the smooth little triangle. The metal is once more cool, and it doesn't hurt when he prods it. When he looks at his hands, there are no bleached white lines striping his skin. He shivers, asks in spite of himself. "What if I don't prove myself?"

Peterson knocks back the rest of his drink, then grins. "First rule of being an executive, Carlos: don't think about failure. Eyes on the prize!"

"So why are you telling me this? Why help me, knowing that I was submitting false reports about the oranges, that I tried to escape?"

"Because you've got what it takes, and I hate to see wasted potential. Not to mention..." Peterson leans forward, puts his hand on Carlos's arm. Carlos stays carefully motionless. The executive's voice is low, his eyes dark and intent. "I like you, Carlos; you know that. I've liked you since I first saw you."

Carlos hunches his shoulders, his stomach churning. "First saw me—at that party? Or when you were interrogating me, when I first was captured in Desert Bluffs?"

Peterson pauses, for almost an unnoticeable instant. Then he casually lifts his hand from Carlos's arm. "So the memory blocks did crash."

"Apparently," Carlos says. He doesn't specify all he's still missing.

"It was Dr. Talbot's call, for me to introduce myself as a new acquaintance," Peterson says. He gets up, goes back to the drinks cabinet. "He didn't want to risk interfering with the reconstruction. It took a lot of effort, getting you up and working again."

"And whose call was that reconstruction in the first place?" Carlos demands. "Was it your order to wipe Night Vale from my memory?"

Peterson pauses again for another fraction of a second, then sets down the decanter and turns back to Carlos. "That wasn't my decision, no. But I went to the mat for you, to get you a chance at being a researcher. The other executives either wanted to retrain you for base labor; or else see the interrogation through, do a comprehensive brain-drain and use your corpse as a resistance deterrent.—Both of which options, I should note, are still very much on the table, especially after your little escapade on the mesa. My colleagues don't like you nearly as much as I do. Frankly, they think you're more trouble than you're worth. I've only just convinced them that you're not."

"Do you want me to thank you?" Carlos is shaking. "Because you gave me a chance—because you saw potential in me? Because you were attracted to me? So you erased everything I was, all the work I was doing, and remade me as—as a researcher, as an executive candidate, it doesn't matter. I didn't choose to come work for Strex—I came to Night Vale instead, and I found a life there; but you took that from me. You stole that from me." Almost two years gone. And he knows what Cecil's voice sounds like, but wouldn't recognize him if he met him on the street. "I don't care what opportunities I'm offered; did you possibly think I'd want anything to do with you or your damn company, knowing what you did to me?"

Peterson just stands before him, letting Carlos speak without responding or arguing. He's not smiling anymore, but not frowning either; not angry or upset. His voice is calm when he replies, "No, I doubted it would be what you want. But no one ever gets exactly what they want; it's an imperfect world, now. The key to happiness, to perfection, is looking at what you have to keep, and what you can attain, and making that all you want.

"So look at what you have now, Carlos, and look at what you can get. Forget the dramatic hyperbole; there's plenty you do want from Strex. You're a scientist; our labs are state-of-the-art, our research is cutting-edge. As an executive you'd have your pick of projects, not to mention design your own prescription plan. Take an ASAP regimen as long as you'd like, have the psychiatrists figure out how to counter the side-effects.

"As for the rest of your life—you started making a home for yourself, here in Desert Bluff. You have work colleagues, a favorite bar. And of course a local celebrity who is head over heels for you, and don't try to tell me you don't feel anything for Kevin. And if that's not enough for you, you can have Night Vale as well. I'll tie a ribbon on it for you myself!"

"Like hell I'm going back to Night Vale as Strex's employee," Carlos growls. If his hands tighten any harder around the tumbler, he's going to crack the crystal. "Whatever you do to me, whatever you offer, I'm never working for Strex again."

"But that's the thing. As an executive, you wouldn't be working for the company; you'd be _using_ it."

"Is that what you're doing? Using it?"

Peterson laughs. "It's what _all_ executives are doing, Carlos! We all have grand ambitions, aspirations we couldn't achieve, without the kind of power only a government or a mega-corporation can offer. And worshipping a Smiling God is cleaner than politics..."

"I don't want that kind of power," Carlos says. "I don't want power!"

"Only because you haven't thought about what you could do with it," Peterson says. "As an executive, you'd control the company, instead of being controlled by it. As, say, the director of research, you could put a stop to any unethical projects. Not to mention, do what you like with Night Vale. If you faked your reports to the board as well as you did your EOD reports on the oranges, you could get away with practically anything there. Fudge the bloodstone export figures, reinstate the local government in the name of a social experiment. Whatever you think is best.

"You can think about all of that, all you could accomplish as an executive...or you can look at what you stand to lose. Your mind, or your life. Or..." Peterson hesitates, lowering his head regretfully. "Here's the thing, Carlos. Like it or not, I do see potential in you. But if you're really not interested in pursuing it, if you're really determined to have nothing to do with us, then I'm going to have to recommend you get wiped again. Clear the slate of your last months here, and start you over from scratch."

" _No_..." Carlos doesn't mean to react; the denial falls uninvited from his lips.

Peterson shakes his head. "That's not my first choice; it's an inefficient use of resources, to put you through employee orientation twice. On the other hand, it will go smoother this time; we've got a better handle now on employing your skills and exploiting your sensitivities. If we'd realized sooner how well you bond with a research team, for instance..."

Carlos's hands close around the tumbler in his hand, as if trying to physically hold onto his memories. Onto himself. Clear the slate and he forgets Dana appearing before him, forgets the bloodstones and the oranges and what he did to Nisa. Forgets Cecil's voice on the radio, welcoming him to Night Vale.

He says, softly, "But you'll be doing that anyway. Since now you know how I feel—even if I accept a promotion and become an executive, you'll know I'll never have the company's best interests in mind. Inside or outside, I'll be working against StrexCorp."

Johnny Peterson smiles, wide enough to show off all of his bleached and polished teeth. "Of course you will," he says. "At first, of course you will. And every other executive will be expecting it. I told you, we're all using Strex. Someone so thoughtlessly devoted as to put a company's best interests ahead of their own could never make it as an executive.

"But I'll let you in on a little secret, Carlos. _It doesn't matter._ Oh, it takes a while for someone so nobly well-intentioned to accept it. For so many years you'll be able to tell yourself that you're working against the company, sabotaging it from the inside. That anything you do which works in its favor is only coincidence, or necessary to preserve your position, your influence. That the sacrifices you make, the people you use, the rewards you claim, are all in the name of ultimately bringing down this evil and saving your beloved hometown.

"Until eventually, some bright sunny morning years from now, you'll wake up and see the truth. You'll see that as the company's employee, you _are_ the company. That it doesn't matter why you're working for us, as long as you're working. Everything you do for yourself, you do for StrexCorp; you do in the service of our Smiling God.

"And on that day, maybe you'll think of what I told you now, and you'll curse my name, and then you'll laugh. Because you'll realize that it didn't matter that I told you, that you should have seen it coming, that you should have been more careful, knowing what you would become. You'll understand that it was inevitable.

"Or maybe you won't remember I told you anything. Maybe you'll be contentedly working for Strex, unaware that there are any other possibilities. Be our loyal researcher again, if you haven't been retrained to scrub out organic waste units by hand."

Carlos swallows. Licks his lips, saliva stinging the chapped flesh, and asks, "So what do I have to do? If I do want to become an executive?"

"Not much for now," Peterson says. "Your chance is coming. However...it'd help your case if I could give my associates something. Nothing big, it doesn't have to be anything important; I can spin it to make it sound better than it is. Just a single fact—the name of your contact who showed you the route out of Desert Bluffs, say; or where exactly that route was. Or anything about Night Vale that you happen to remember, that isn't common knowledge. Just something to give me some leverage, to show that you can be brought around. If you like I'll tell them I tortured it out of you.

"Otherwise..." Peterson shakes his head regretfully. "I'm worried that I won't be able to convince the others to give you another chance. I'll try, of course, but I can't guarantee..."

"But if I give you some information, you could guarantee it?"

"Absolutely!" Peterson's smile is eager, hopeful. "I've put myself on the line, called in enough favors that as long as I bring them something, you'll be given a fair shake. Those are your choices, Carlos. So what'll it be? Should I send you back to the Advancement Institute for retraining? Or will you give me some innocuous, harmless tidbit about Night Vale, and keep fighting the good fight?"

"Let me...let me think about it."

Peterson nods, checking his watch. "As it happens, I have an errand elsewhere. I should be back in a couple hours; how about you stay here in my office, take it easy, think things over. No one'll bother you. You know where the bathroom is, and the drinks. Anything else, ask my secretary; the phone on the desk is a direct line. Just one thing," and Peterson raises a cautioning finger. "Your S-chip has been rebooted, but I didn't have a chance to enter it into my office's security protocols. As long as you stay inside, that's fine; but if you try to leave without me, it'll be...well. Don't try any of the exits, got it? Keep about eight feet back and you'll be fine."

"I understand," Carlos says.

Peterson gives him a companionable pat on the shoulder. "Good luck," he says. "I know you'll work out what to do."

After the executive departs, Carlos gets up from the couch to pace the office, keeping a cautious three meters from the main doors and the fire exit in back. He still doesn't see any cameras or microphones. Maybe privacy is another perk of being an executive. Or else the perk is that the surveillance is less obtrusive.

He looks at the awards in sculpted metal and glass on the shelves, the expensive liquor bottles in their rack, crystal catching the bright sunlight and scattering rainbows across the carpet. He tries to open the discreet filing cabinets along the far wall, and goes through the drawers of the broad oak desk. There is no accessible computer equipment anywhere in the office. He picks up the phone on the desk, but it's analogue, with a cord, not even an electronic switchboard. 

Standing behind the desk, Carlos stops, looking out the wide windows. They're sealed shut, but the sparkling clean glass is all but invisible in the sunlight. Peterson's office is about forty stories up, taller than most of Desert Bluff's downtown. It's high enough that the streets below take on the aspect of intricate miniatures, model people driving matchbox cars, a toy city to be played with or smashed to pieces on a whim.

Carlos turns back. Peterson's chair is as luxurious as the rest of the office, with plush leather matching the settee and an ergonomically curved back, balanced on five rollers of solid, shining gold ball-bearings clasped in stylized metal claws.

Carlos grasps the padded arms in both hands, bends his knees deep to lift the heavy chair, and heaves it against the window.

The rollers clank against the glass without cracking it; the chair clatters uselessly to the floor, its upside-down base turning a wobbly rotation.

Carlos stands still, listening, waiting. No one comes to investigate, or stop him from flipping over the chair and trying again.

By the fifth attempt he's panting, his arms sore. He spreads his fingers over the window, feeling the glass. It's cool and slickly smooth; there is not a mark, not a chip or a scratch to show for his efforts. 

Carlos sits down hard on the floor, hunched over and scraping his hands through his hair. It's growing out, slowly, but it's nowhere near the curly tangle in his dream.

He's tempted to go back into the private suite, go back to bed. See if he can go back to that dream, find Cecil in that unknown but familiar house. It may be his last chance, while he still remembers there's any dream he wants to have.

While he still remembers that there's anything he wants to save.

Instead, Carlos gets up, returns to the desk. The middle drawer is locked. The bottom drawer holds three gallon-jugs of white vinegar, and a roll of clear plastic sheeting. The top drawer just has standard office supplies: rubber bands, paper clips, tape, a stapler.

And a letter opener, like Tamika Flynn brought.

On the pretext of examining the stapler, Carlos palms the letter opener, slips it up his lab coat's sleeve. He's still not sure where the cameras are, so maybe it was seen. Or maybe it wasn't; no one enters the office, even after he closes the drawer and steps back from the desk.

He goes back to the private suite, to the lavish bathroom. There's no lock on the door, but he closes it anyway. He sits down on the filigree toilet lid, takes out the letter opener.

Or maybe it's a dagger? Or else a packing knife. Its handle is gold-plated, but the beveled blade is steel, its filed edge glinting. Barely brushing his fingertip against that razor edge draws blood. But the blade is only twenty centimeters long, too short to be an effective weapon, even if he had any faith in his prowess against a building of trained security personnel.

Carlos turns the knife in his hands, then looks up into the mirror over the sink. The man in the reflection is haggard, gray-faced under the brown. But his eyes are calm.

He thinks of Cecil's broadcast, the first he heard after getting the radio, when he didn't even know the name of that voice in the dark. Cecil described witnessing his compatriots in Night Vale's rebellion, captured by Strex: _"I saw their faces as they were surrounded, and they were angry, and they were defiant, and they were triumphant. They were not afraid; and they all did what they had to do."_

Carlos is angry; Carlos is defiant. He may not be triumphant—but he is not afraid.

He sets the dagger to his neck, under his throat on the pulse point, opposite the Employee of the Month badge.

Tamika had put her knife there; Carlos can feel the last slight roughness of the scab. The girl had known what she was doing; she'd probably read up extensively on anatomy, to fight her battles. Carlos can trust in her knowledge.

He breathes in, breathes out. Part of his brain, the animal survival instinct, is howling inside his head. Another part is still calculating, searching for another way out of this, another solution.

But another solution would be less permanent. Too dangerous to risk, when Night Vale is at stake.

He tightens his grip on the knife's heavy hilt. The needle-sharp point catches in his skin; in the mirror he sees the single crimson bead pearling at the blade's tip. It pinches, but his hands remain steady.

He hopes that Tamika and Dana didn't tell Cecil after all. He hopes that Strex won't use his corpse as a resistance deterrent. Though better they use his body against Night Vale, than his mind.

He wonders just what the punishment is, for communing in dreams across the veil.

Carlos takes a deep breath, closes his eyes. Then deliberately, precisely, he draws the blade across his throat.


	23. Chapter 23

Carlos is expecting pain; but the bite of the knife blade does not hurt like he expects it to hurt. It burns, but not with heat, instead a dry, freezing chill, as if what spills from his throat is not blood but liquid nitrogen.

He opens his eyes, and sees in the mirror, not red, but anemic bleached white, glowing sickly against his darker skin. The lines radiate out from the orange triangle, a glimmering network that grows and multiplies as he watches, like a web spun by some invisible spider under his skin. Those pale filaments swarm over the bloodless slit in his neck, sealing back together the torn flesh, and continue to spread.

The knife slips from his hand, his fingers trembling with the same searing pain he felt out on the mesa. Carlos falls to the floor, his stiffening fingers clawing clumsily, uselessly, at his neck, at the badge burning hot against his skin. The paralysis spreads more quickly than before; he feels severed, disconnected from his body except for the agony of the badge's pale poison, forcing itself through his veins.

By the time he hears the footsteps, hears the bathroom door open, he cannot even roll over to see who enters. All he can do is lie there, the tile cold against his cheek, shivering erratically.

The footsteps stop beside him. "Well, just look at you now," Johnny Peterson sighs. "I suppose I should have warned you, but I was hoping you'd learned something..."

"What—is this?" Carlos grates out through gritted teeth, his breath coming short and shallow from his locked lungs. "What'd—you do—to me?"

"Me? Oh, no, you brought this on yourself." Behind him he hears Peterson's voice change as the man crouches, hears the clink of metal against ceramic as he picks up the fallen knife. "What were you doing with this, hmm?" and Carlos sees a glitter of steel in the corner of his eye, feels the tip of the blade drag across his cheek and down his jaw, to the triangle badge. Then a new surge of freezing pain makes him moan, as the blade digs in.

"It's for your own good," Peterson says. Carlos can't see his face, but the executive's voice carries a reassuring smile. "You see, in the past, some employees, for whatever reasons, just didn't personally feel themselves deserving of being Employee of the Month. They were wrong, of course; only someone truly, perfectly worthy is ever chosen for the Smiling God. But sometimes those silly people, not realizing their own perfection, would try to refuse it—try to turn down the honor, as if the choice was theirs to make. They'd attempt to resign, or refuse to follow the recommended procedures; some of them even would try to make the sacrifice prematurely, before they were properly ready.

"And even with more cooperative Employees, the grooming process was difficult in itself, time-consuming and inefficient, all the diets and regimens and surgery needed to prepare the body. So StrexCorp's best technicians were put on the problem, and they came up with this." He taps the badge again with the knife.

"No," Carlos denies. "I tested the badge—it's nothing—just solid metal—"

"It is," Johnny Peterson agrees. "Just a bit of metal embedded in your epidermis—necessarily, and not just to show people you've been chosen. You only tested it once, I guess, or you would have noticed the badge is several millimeters thinner now than when you were rewarded it. You weren't just given the badge, you see; the implantation needle that attached it to you also included a few more things. Very tiny things, microscopic—only a couple dozen in the original injection, but once in your bloodstream they're programmed to replicate themselves. Mostly using the elements in your blood for construction, but for the rarer materials required for the microcircuitry, they had the badge.

"The growth curve is exponential; by now, about sixty percent of your red blood cells have been replaced, and it will be close enough to one hundred by the month's end. Don't worry; our technicians are very clever. While they last, these little machines are even more efficient than human erythrocytes; they can do all that necessary work of carrying oxygen, and preparing your body for divine intervention, and still have energy to spare when they're triggered. Such as when you're seriously injured, or when the psychoactive chemicals in your system fall below recommended levels. Then they're programmed to signal for help, and to ensure you can't do yourself any further harm.

"It's been quite an effective program—though slightly less so when they're triggered while you're climbing down a cliff-face. If I'd guessed you were going to be that pre-emptive—or that you'd completely stopped taking your prescriptions—I'd have intervened sooner. But all's well that ends well; you're back here now, safe and sound, and that's what matters."

Peterson pauses, while Carlos struggles for breath. His chest is seizing, making breathing difficult; black spots are pulsating in his vision. "Well," Peterson says behind him, "safe; but not as sound as I'd hoped. I take it from this," and he dangles the dagger before Carlos's eyes, "that you came to a decision."

"Already—decided," Carlos says. "Told you—I'm not helping Strex again—never."

Peterson sighs again. "I was afraid you were going to say that. If that's your choice, then you don't leave me with much of one. I'm sorry about this, Carlos—"

"Liar," Carlos spits. "You're not going to—retrain me now. Not after a month—preparing me."

Peterson chuckles with genuine amusement. "Not right away now, no. I may have been exaggerating a bit, for effect. Though I wasn't lying about the chance to become an executive. If you make it through this quarterly report, you'll be offered a promotion; it's traditional, for those few who survive our God's esteem. Though in your case, if by some happy miracle you do prevail, you might be retrained first...guess we'll just have to wait and see how it goes.

"For now, however," and Carlos feels the sharp, cold touch of a needle against his neck, hears the hiss of the auto-injector's activation. "I'm afraid the Advancement Institute wants to pick up your interview where you left off. Since I can't get anything out of you, they're taking you back, for the few days you have left until the end of the month."

The injection's soothing numbness spreads quickly through Carlos, taking away the pain, and consciousness with it. The last thing he is aware of is Peterson resting a hand on his arm, so lightly that it barely makes the nanite poison in his blood burn. "I really am sorry," the executive says. "I'd have been happy to help you, if only you'd been willing; you had so much potential..."

 

* * *

 

_"—so much potential!"_

Carlos is—was—lying in darkness, motionless, weighted yet drifting in a drugged fog. There were voices over him, unfamiliar strangers arguing—

—No; he recognizes some of them—Dr. Talbot, Johnny Peterson. Or rather he recognizes them now, but he hadn't then. Then there was only confusion, terror blunted by the heavy sedation to a nebulous unease.

This happened months ago. He's dreaming, he realizes, or else remembering—remembering—

"—sure that he remembers nothing?"

"The memories are completely gone," Dr. Talbot said. "We've tried every method we have of eliciting information and confirming its authenticity. The subject retains no knowledge of his former residence or his work there."

"But can you guarantee none of those memories will ever return?" asked one of the other voices—unidentifiable, though its authority is familiar; an executive, Carlos thinks, from his present vantage. 

"Not guarantee, no."

"Then let's not risk it," said another stranger's voice, also with an executive's conviction. "Let's just retrain him down to the essentials—he'll make a great symbol, their valued Scientist, without a neuron to call his own—"

"You can't!" Johnny Peterson protested. "That'd be an appalling waste of resources. Don't you see what we have here? To begin with, whatever Lauren Mallard's reports claim, I've been there myself, and I can tell you, Night Vale is one hell of a nut to crack. We can't afford to throw away a hammer like this."

"But he doesn't remember a damn thing about it—"

"'So?" Peterson challenged. "This man has been in that town less than two years with, what, five other scientists? And he's figured out more than the hundred top researchers we've put on it. Even if he doesn't retain a single detail, according to the docs his mind's otherwise intact. He solved those enigmas once; if we give him enough data, he can do it again."

"And if working with that data triggers a memory relapse?"

"Then that's just as valuable information," Peterson said. "Think about what it means, if we can perfect this technique! Our usual retraining program serves its purposes, but this—I'm talking about getting in on the ground floor of the next big thing since Desert Bluff's vital fluids technology. This subject didn't voluntarily sign our contract; do you know how long orientation usually takes, for an unwilling employee? Or what kind of regimen is required to maintain it? Have you seen the ongoing pricetag of our dear local radio host, for instance? And if— _when,_ we get hold of the NVCR host...the accountants are going to be running that cost-benefit analysis for days.

"But in this case—Dr. Talbot, what's the time estimate to finish this subject's orientation, and get him to work?"

"If he continues at the current rate of integrity adjustment? Four more days."

"Subtract the interrogation, and that's a week—a _week_!" Peterson cried. "For a full conversion! Even our most cooperative new hires take longer than that to acclimatize to company policy. How many employees could we bring on, with this kind of turn-around? Intact, high-level-intellect employees, brought into the light of our Smiling God in the same time it took Him to destroy the universe."

"Laying it on a bit thick, aren't you," remarked one of the other executives. "You realize you're staking your career on this; if it doesn't work out, you're going down with him."

"And if it _does_ work out, we're all candidates for division directors, or better."

"I'll grant you that it's an attractive idea," the other executive puts in. "Except you haven't answered the most crucial question about this procedure—"

"—and it may never be answered, if we dispose of him now—"

"—If you'll excuse me," Dr. Talbot said, his voice suddenly louder, closer to Carlos, "it seems the sedative is wearing off; I'll increase the dose..."

 

* * *

 

By now, Carlos thinks, he should be used to returning to awareness like this; he's spent more time unconscious than actually asleep, in the last—week? Less than a week; Peterson had said it was four days until the end of the month. However long ago that had been.

Carlos calculates this behind closed eyes, keeping his breathing slow and even, trying to pretend he's still insensible. It's not a very successful attempt; within minutes he hears a door open, and then rough hands grab his arms, yank him up off the cot.

Since he apparently can't be seriously injured anyway, Carlos doesn't see any point in going quietly. He manages to clock one of the uniformed guards across the jaw with his fist; then the other one applies his taser.

They don't bother with a hood this time, but the taser's jolt leaves Carlos too dazed to concentrate on the concrete-gray and orange-striped corridors they 're dragging him through. His arms are free of the white veins, at least, the nanites back to replicating quietly and without notice within his bloodstream. Preparing him.

In less than four days, the month ends. It's not that long to endure. And if his interrogators are unaware of how many of his memories he has or hasn't regained, there's a possibility that they'll ask questions he can't answer anyway. 

Carlos may not follow the route, but the room they eventually arrive at he knows all too well, with its yellow tile floors and mirrored wall. Though once inside he realizes it's not the same interrogation chamber; the mirror is on the opposite wall from the door. 

And the metal chair under the glaring spotlight is already occupied: a man is strapped into it. A man who isn't Carlos, who Carlos doesn't recognize.

Carlos stumbles to a halt between his uniformed escort. The guards let him stop, standing silent and hulking as Carlos frowns at the man in the chair. His head is rocked back against the metal grill of the chair's headrest as he pants for breath. His drawn, gaunt face isn't familiar, nor is the tenor of his harsh gasps. But he's wearing a lab coat, probably once white, now torn and stained with sweat and darker fluids.

"What is this?" Carlos says. "I thought I was brought back here for further interrogation..."

 _"So you have,"_ pronounces Dr. Talbot's metallic voice, issuing from the speaker overhead. _"But due to a recent change in circumstances, and after reviewing your records, we've decided to restructure the conversation."_

As Talbot speaks, the man in the chair slowly, painfully raises his head to peer at Carlos with bloodshot eyes. His cracked lips move. "Carlos?" His unfamiliar voice is hoarse and disbelieving. "Oh my god, she was right—you are alive..."

Carlos tears his eyes away before the man can meet them, spins on his heel towards the mirror. Unable to see whoever watches behind it, he stares at his own impenetrable reflection in the one-way glass. "I don't understand, who is this man? What is he doing here?"

_"So you deny all knowledge of this subject, and his counter-Strex activities?"_

"I've never seen him before," Carlos says, knowing it's a lie, even if he doesn't remember the truth. 

_"Very well,"_ Talbot says. _"In that case, he is superfluous to our requirements. Guards, we're concluding this consultation; please dispose of the cadaver, so we can continue—"_

"Wait!" Carlos protests. "You can't—"

By some unseen signal, the advancing guards stop. Over the loudspeaker Talbot demands, _"Can you offer any information to justify the expenditure of company resources to support this man?"_

In the mirror, Carlos can see the man in question watching him—glaring, through a haze of pain and disorientation. "Don't," the man croaks, "don't tell them anything—"

The blue-uniformed guards stand before the chair, awaiting further orders. Carlos studies the man's contorted features, willing himself to recognize them. Maybe they do ring a faint bell, the more he looks at them; or maybe he's imagining it.

At any rate, he's positive he's never seen this man in Desert Bluffs, and doesn't recall him from any of his university positions before. If this isn't a trick, then there's one logical conclusion.

Carlos licks his lips, says, "He's worth the expenditure; he's valuable. He's a Night Vale scientist. One of my colleagues—my former colleagues."

"No—!" the man in the chair shouts—then a sharp crack of electricity cuts off his objection in a breathless shriek, as he jerks up against the straps.

Carlos twitches, half empathy and half memory. 

_"What subjects was he researching in Night Vale?"_ Talbot asks. _"Which of his projects were designed to or could be repurposed to use against corporate takeover?"_

"I—I don't know," Carlos stammers. "We, um, worked independently; I didn't—"

 _"In that case he's of no use to us,"_ Talbot says. The electricity crackles again, louder. The man writhes in the chair, his cries strangled to a low agonized whine. White foam flecks his lips as the faint scent of ozone rises. From the speaker overhead, Talbot commands, implacable, uncaring _"Guards, dispose—"_

"—Don't!" Carlos is moving before he realizes what he's doing—before the guards can realize it, either; he's past them before they can stop him, lunging for the man in the chair. He gets near enough to grab the wire attached to the row of electrodes on the man's left arm, yanks it free of the charged contacts, releasing an arc of blue sparks.

Before Carlos can reach another wire, the guards seize him, wrestle him back with ease. They're substantially sized individuals; either of them would be a match for Peterson's hulking waiter _cum_ bodyguard Julian. And they both have drawn tasers.

Carlos stops struggling before they can shock him. Tilting his head up to the ceiling, he says, "I remember one of his projects. That you might be interested in."

The man in the chair moans incoherently. Out of the corner of his eye Carlos can see him in the mirror, his head lolling back against the chair. Still alive, at least.

 _"Release him,"_ Talbot orders. The guards let go of Carlos's arms, as the interrogator asks, _"So what project is that?"_

Carlos steadies himself with a hand to the mirror as he racks his brain. What was it that Cecil had mentioned, in his dream, or memory, or whatever it had been...

 _"If you are deliberately delaying,"_ and Talbot's tinny voice is more monotone than ever, practically bored, _"then we may be forced to incentivize,"_ and one of the guards aims his taser—not at Carlos, but at the man in the chair.

"—The glow cloud!" Carlos says. "He was researching Night Vale's glow cloud."

The silence that follows tells him he chose correctly. When the loudspeaker finally hisses back to life, Talbot sounds, slightly, almost indiscernibly, pleased. _"What did his research discover about the glow cloud?"_

"I don't know," Carlos says. "He was, um, taking atmospheric samples. Performing experiments. But I came to Desert Bluffs before he could report the results."

_"So you have no additional information about this project?"_

"No, but if I could speak with my colleague in private, maybe I could find out..."

 _"What an...accommodating suggestion."_ The interrogator almost sounds amused. _"We'll resume this conversation later, once the subject regains coherency. For now, thank you for your assistance, Carlos."_

It's how they've ended all the interrogation sessions. This time, Carlos glances at the man in the chair, bound and helpless, and forces out, "You're welcome."

One of the guards undoes the strap around the man's chest, releases his wrists and ankles. The man doesn't seem to notice, his head falling limply forward as he's hauled up out of the chair. He seems to be semi-conscious at best, barely aware—right up until he explodes into motion.

Flinging up his arms, he wrenches free of the guard's grip, to charge at Carlos, howling, "Traitor!"

Caught off guard, Carlos can't brace himself before the man hurtles into him. His back slams into the mirror, and then they're both sliding to the floor, Carlos with the man on top of him, clawing at Carlos with animalistic rage. "How could you?" the other scientist demands, eyes wild. He stinks of sweat and vomit and his hoarse voice stutters like sobs. "The glow cloud—how could you tell them?!"

For a moment Carlos is terrified—was this man actually a meteorologist? Was the glow cloud really his project—perhaps Carlos subconsciously remembered his work; has he betrayed something true to Strex, instead of only lies? "I didn't—" Carlos wheezes, "I'm—"

"Shut up! Stop talking!" The man slaps both hands over Carlos's mouth, stifling him. He's staring down at Carlos, but though his face is contorted into an enraged grimace, the gleam of his bloodshot eyes is weirdly lucid—not angry, but intent. Carlos has never seen Dave look so determined—

_—Dave?_

The man's fingers over his mouth are pushing at Carlos's lips, forcing them open—no, forcing something between them, something small and round and smooth, like a pill, only slightly irregular, a blunt point at one end, like a—

The man is still staring Carlos directly in the eyes. He dips his head once, almost imperceptibly, the slightest of nods, as Carlos closes his lips over the tiny object.

Then the guards grab the man's arms and pull him off Carlos. He struggles against their grip, spitting incoherent accusations, "Traitor—make you pay—I won't tell them anything!"

The guard's taser chatters, and the man—Dave?—convulses, then goes limp. " _Careful!"_ admonishes Talbot overhead. _"If he's damaged now—"_ The door opens, admitting another pair of guards and a doctor in an anonymous surgical mask.

As they occupy themselves with the man, Carlos pulls himself up sitting, wipes his hand across his mouth. He passes the unseen object from his lips to his fingers with a dexterity earned from a month of palming pills, curls his fist around it as he stands up. He keeps his fingers tightly closed as the guards escort him back through the halls, to the cell he woke up in before, or one like it.

Perhaps to reward him for his cooperation, they don't cuff him now, or put a hood over his eyes. They just push him inside, then pull the door shut behind him. It clanks as it closes, the dull, forbidding sound of solid steel, trapping him in a chamber of seamless gray walls, three meters by three. There's a cot, cloth stretched over an aluminum frame, fixed to one wall; and a stainless steel sink and commode on the opposite wall. That's it, except for the camera set on the ceiling between the fluorescent lights.

Carlos sits on the cot, hunches over with his head in his hand, his face averted from the camera's shiny black eye. Tucked under his chin, he opens his other fist, allows himself one glimpse of his forgotten colleague's gift.

He'd already identified the little round shape by feel; but it's still reassuring to see the orange pip, sitting safely in his palm.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay - winter is a terrible time for writing for me, but as the days get longer my creative mojo returns (I'm not sure if it's ironic or just appropriate, given the nature of this story, that it needs the sun to shine...?) To make up for it this chapter's longer than most, and the next should be more promptly posted. Just hope someone remembers this well enough to still be interested!

The sun is running late this morning; it's not quite over the horizon yet, and the pre-dawn glimmer through the curtains casts the room in shades of charcoal gray. Carlos doesn't bother turning on a lamp, dressing by shadow and touch.

He's groping in his drawer for socks (it seems like _someone_ —not to name any names, since to his knowledge she doesn't actually have one, no more than she has a face—has found a new place for her marble collection) when he hears a yawn from the bed. "You're up already?" Cecil's voice is drowsy, sleep-thickened.

Carlos stops shuffling the clinking marbles, says, "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you yet. Tamika just called."

Blankets rustle. "Already?" Cecil doesn't sound sleepy anymore, even without coffee.

"The shuttle is due in an hour, give or take local temporal distortions." Carlos finally locates a pair of socks, sits on the foot of the bed to pull them on.

"Do you have everything ready?"

Carlos touches his wrist, then the contents of his lab coat pockets, as if he hadn't gotten up to double-check them five times during the night. "Yes, I'm all set. Coffee's already on, we can share a cup before I head out—"

"Carlos, are you sure about this?" Cecil says behind him, and the softness of his voice in no way compromises its intensity. "Are you certain this will work?"

"No," Carlos says. "No more than I've ever been. All I know is what you do, that the individual tests were successful. If the effect scales up, then Strex—"

"We could try it at the Night Vale radio station," Cecil says, hopefully, as if he hasn't suggested it a dozen times already.

Carlos shakes his head. "You know we can't. Putting aside the evident risks to everyone here, I doubt I can boost the transceiver's range to broadcast to all of Desert Bluffs. And we need complete coverage—if we only reach a fraction of their employees now, we're unlikely to get another chance, once StrexCorp realizes what we'd done."

"I could come with you," Cecil says. "I'm part of this experiment, after all—"

"I have the recording; that's all I need from you," Carlos says. "Cecil, don't worry. I'll be fine. A scientist is always fine. And by tonight, Night Vale will be, too. But now I have to—"

"Please, Carlos," Cecil says, and puts his arms around Carlos, kneeling on the bed behind him with his chin on Carlos's shoulder. "Stay here. With me. Don't go to Desert Bluffs."

Carlos stills. This feels real, the dip of the mattress under him, the warmth of Cecil's body against his back, solid and present and convincing. It feels real, but he knows it isn't. That it can't be. He's in Desert Bluffs now, in a cell; the only lights should be artificial fluorescents, not the rosy glow of coming day. "I'm dreaming again, aren't I."

"Yes." Cecil's voice catches in the dim darkness, low and tentative. Strained in a way Carlos can't identify. "Or else I am. I've dreamed about this morning so many times. If only I had told you not to go, if only I'd begged you... I could've hidden your phone, so you'd have gotten Tamika's message too late. I could've locked you in the closet, tied you to the bed. We could have tried again another day, after we'd taken more precautions. Or not tried at all."

"I didn't succeed, did I," Carlos says. "Not only that Strex caught me; my mission, whatever I came to Desert Bluffs to do, I failed. I didn't save Night Vale."

"Maybe it wasn't possible," Cecil says. "You said the only way to be sure was to try it; if we'd only known beforehand that it wouldn't work..."

"If we could know the results of an experiment before doing the experiment, there would be no point to the scientific method," Carlos says. "No reason for anyone to be a scientist."

Cecil exhales, a quavering breath that might be a sigh or might be a chuckle, gusting against Carlos's ear. "Sometimes I might wish for that. That you were never a scientist. Even if it meant you never came to Night Vale, better for you to be alive somewhere, anywhere, with or without me."

"I'm not sure that's true," Carlos says. "All the evidence seems to indicate that the man I was in Night Vale—the scientist I was in Night Vale—was braver, and stronger, and more of a hero than I can ever remember being."

"Even if that were so," Cecil says, and that unidentifiable feeling strains his voice almost to breaking, "and even if Night Vale needed heroes now...as selfish as it is for me to say, I wanted my boyfriend more." It's guilt, Carlos realizes, the shame of that admission tearing at Cecil's throat. He sounds raw, broken, as Carlos has never heard him on the radio, even that night he was mourning. 

Cecil would never say this aloud, on or off the air, Carlos thinks. But this is a dream, and in this dream Cecil says, "Even if you'd succeeded, and Strex had never come back to Night Vale...if you never came back, either, I wouldn't have found our freedom worth that price." 

Carlos's chest aches, a physical, visceral pressure, as if Cecil's gentle arms are holding too tightly for him to breathe. In reality, Cecil hadn't stopped him; in reality Cecil had let Carlos go to Desert Bluffs, for Night Vale's sake.

"I'm sorry," Carlos says helplessly. "I'm sorry that I went to Desert Bluffs, I'm sorry that I failed, I'm sorry that I didn't come back to Night Vale, come back to you. If only I'd figured out the truth sooner, if I'd been able to escape Strex—Cecil, I'm so sorry—"

"I'll forgive you," Cecil whispers. His arms are still around Carlos, a warm band across his stomach; but his voice is quiet, as if coming from far away. "I'll forgive you, Carlos, if you stay—please, stay with me now. I was so alone, and it was so dark and empty...I just want to stay here with you; I don't want to wake up—"

"—wake up?" but that's not Cecil's voice.

Carlos opens his eyes. He's lying on his side, staring at a gray wall centimeters from his nose. One of his own arms is wrapped around his stomach, where Cecil's should be; his other arm is awkwardly crooked over his face, his clenched fist pressed under his temple. Within his fist, nestled in his palm's lifeline, is the hard round shape of the orange pip. 

"Hello, Dave? Are you awake? Can you hear me?"

"I can hear you," Carlos says, and rolls over on the narrow cot.

The cell's fluorescent lights have been lowered; the dim glow illuminates Dana's shadowy figure, staring at him with disbelieving hope. "Carlos?" she cries, and starts to rush forward.

Then she stops herself with a jerk, raises her hands in a reassuring gesture as she summons an earnest, anxious smile. "If you don't remember me, I'm your friend; my name is—"

"Dana," Carlos says, sitting up. "I remember you—I haven't been retrained yet."

"Thank the Masters!" Dana moves to hug him, not caring that her embrace goes halfway through him. Carlos returns the gesture, cool draft for cool draft, smiling in spite of everything. "I was so worried that they'd have erased your memory again," Dana says. "That you wouldn't know me, even if Dave managed to get the orange seed to you—"

"So his name is Dave," Carlos says. He rubs his face, reluctantly letting go the dream of Cecil from his mind, replaced by this waking nightmare. He thinks back to the man in Strex's interrogation chamber who gave him the pip. His face in Carlos's memory is a stranger's, and yet... "Was he one of my scientific colleagues in Night Vale?"

"He was! Did you remember him, then?"

"Not really," Carlos admits. "Just his name, not anything about him."

Dana looks around the cell. "Where's Dave now? Is he all right?"

"No," Carlos says grimly. "How did Strex capture him? And why did he have the orange pip? Didn't Tamika bring it back to Night Vale—or did she never arrive? Don't tell me she was captured again, too..."

"No—no, we made back," Dana says. "Tamika's in Night Vale now."

"Thank goodness," Carlos sighs. "So how is it there, was it good to be back? What about your family, your mother and brother? Did Tamika take the pip to them?"

Dana's face falters, falls. Carlos's heart sinks with it. "No, Dana, what's happened?"

With effort Dana pulls her smile back up, but the liveliness in her voice sounds forced. "Yes, it was good to be back in Night Vale. I got to see the sand wastes again, and cower before the Brownstone Spire. Things have changed a lot, but it's still home. And my family...they're fine. They're in the Strex work camp with almost everybody else. But it's not so bad there. Tamika had one of her book club members bring the pip with him up to the fence one morning, so I could watch my mother and brother going to work. He couldn't risk sneaking inside to give them the pip, so I couldn't talk to them, and they couldn't see me. But I got to see them."

"That's...good," Carlos says, struggling to sound more sincere than appalled. "That you could see them." He hesitates; but he needs to know, and now is not the time for wasting it. "And what about...that is, have you—or Tamika—have you seen, or talked to...did you tell Cecil that I was still alive?"

Dana's hesitation is so short he might have imagined it. "No," she says. "We didn't."

"Oh. Well, thank you for that." Carlos thinks of Cecil in his dream, weeping. Thinks of Cecil's arms around him, the guilt in his voice. He looks around the gray-walled cell, trying to calculate the cost of this truth. Would it give Cecil any relief, or just more pain? At its best it could only offer him cold comfort, whatever it would mean to Carlos. "Is he all right?"

"He's fine," Dana says. "He's with the...with friends. They'll protect him. Actually, that's why I was hoping Dave might be able to give you the pip..."

"Yes, the pip." Carlos tightens his fist around the little seed. His fingers are cramping, but even asleep he hadn't dared put it down. "How did Dave get hold of it, if Tamika brought it to Night Vale?"

"Tamika still has that pip," Dana explains. "This is the one you planted on Dr. Blanchard, so I could follow him into this institute."

"You hid it in an air vent," Carlos recalls.

Dana nods. "After you were captured, I thought you might be brought here for retraining. So I kept going there, to that awful room with the chair and the mirror, hoping I'd find you.—Or else hoping I wouldn't; I didn't want to see you there. But it was the only place in this institute that I could get to. I couldn't find you, though. But a couple of days ago, when I appeared, I saw Dave in that chair. Oh, the things they did to him...if you were with him now, were they doing such things to you, too?"

"Not this time," Carlos says, not wanting to think about it. "So you knew Dave from Night Vale?"

"I'd seen him with you around town, though we'd never met.—Or at least I don't remember meeting; Dave said all the scientists saw me at the house that doesn't exist, though I didn't see any of you then. Anyway, since he was one of your scientists, I thought he might be able to help. So I figured out how to move the pip over to him, and when he touched it he could see and hear me.

"I told him about you—everything, how you weren't really dead but Strex had stolen your memories and made you do science for them, and how you'd been caught again, and I was trying to find you. He didn't believe me, not at first. Even after I convinced him I wasn't a hallucination, he said that you...wouldn't. That you wouldn't sell out your science to Strex, not for anything."

"How'd Strex capture him? How long have they held him here?"

"He's been in this institute about a week, though I think he was in the work camp before that," Dana says. "I'm not sure of the details; Dave was careful about what he said aloud to me. I told him that Strex's cameras wouldn't work when I was around, but I couldn't prove it, so..."

Carlos glances up at the gleaming lens on the ceiling. He's convinced of Dana's limiting effect on surveillance, but Dave had no prior evidence to support her claim. He feels a touch of abstract pride, that his colleagues still resist Strex, even if he failed to.

But a week or longer, in Strex's custody...he should be grateful that even worse hasn't been done to his former colleague. Dave still seemed to have most of his faculties and memories intact, but it's a scant comfort. "Dana, you have to rescue him. Tamika managed to escape from a Strex facility; there must be some way she could break him out—"

"We will," Dana says. "Both of you—that's why I needed to see you. We have a plan. We're taking on Strex—not just hiding from them; we're going to fight back." Her face changes, hardened by determination. She looks older, and unexpectedly fierce. "We're almost ready. People in Night Vale are upset, with the work camp, and losing their bloodstones, and everything else. Tamika has her book club, and I have...well, there are others who don't like Strex very much, and some of them are pretty powerful. We've been preparing for some time, and we're almost ready. Three days from now, on the first of the month, that's when we make our move to take back Night Vale. We'll save our town, and you, too." 

"The first?" Carlos almost laughs in spite of himself. The irony is bittersweet, to say the least. "I'm sorry I won't be able to help. As it turns out, I only have until the last day of this month, whenever that is."

"The day after tomorrow, I think, in your time," Dana says, frowning. "What happens then?"

"I'm not precisely sure." Carlos rubs his neck, his fingers finding the metal orange triangle secured to his dermis. "I don't have access to an employee handbook to verify, and most of the Strex employees I've met lately are asking the questions, not answering them."

"A Strex employee..." Dana snaps her fingers, her face brightening, not faked cheer but genuine. "Hold on, Carlos—if she's up for it, it should be dark enough..." and taking a step sideways, she vanishes from the cell.

"She?" Carlos stands, blinking at the blank wall where Dana just was. Even with the lights dimmed, the red of her intern t-shirt is so vibrant that the concrete and steel confines feel that much colder with her absence.

Just as he wonders if he'll see her again, she reappears, so close that Carlos almost trips over the cot in a pointless attempt to not bump into her. Dana isn't bothered, her head turned from him, toward some invisible sign. "Come on," she says, though not to Carlos. "Hopefully, if this works..."

She reaches out, into seemingly empty space. Which isn't so empty on whatever transdimensional mountain Dana is standing on, because her extended hand clasps another hand. Slender fingers fold around her own as a figure wavers into uncertain being beside her. Shorter than Dana, though taller than Tamika, and dressed in dull gray, so that her not-quite-opaque form blends into the wall behind her...

Carlos stares in disbelief, and unexpected hope. "Nisa?"

His former colleague doesn't smile, but her translucent dark eyes meet his, and they are aware, not clouded and empty like the last time he saw her. "Hello, Carlos," Nisa says.

Carlos has to wipe his own eyes clear. "Dana found you? But you were...I thought, the retraining...?"

Nisa shivers, shoulders hunching. Dana gives her hand a comforting squeeze, explains, "I met up with her several days ago. —Several days there, I think; longer here. She was...she's been getting better, bit by bit. It's okay now, at least when it's dark, isn't it, Nisa? When the light shines, it's...it's difficult, and there isn't much shade out here, especially when there aren't any ang—any trees, or anything."

"The light?" Carlos asks.

Dana shudders. "I don't want to talk about it. It's been here all along; but lately it's been getting worse..."

"Carlos," Nisa interrupts, "Dana said you have questions about Strex, but first I...I have to ask, do you know what's happened to my family? My husband, my son—they might have been punished, too; I was told they wouldn't be if I cooperated, but..."

"I'm sorry, I don't know." Carlos shakes his head, guilt churning in his stomach. He hadn't even thought to look them up while he had access. "I'm so sorry for all of this, Nisa, for getting you in trouble, and sending you to that place—"

"Don't be!" Nisa's gaze is sharp as ever it was; but her eyes seem lighter, clearer than he recalls them being. With her pupils contracted to normal size, the rich brown irises can catch the light. "Being here, it's like a dream...a nightmare. Like waking from a nightmare. Not the retraining; I don't really remember that, or the experiment with the orange, besides what Dana's told me.

"But everything before...I was with StrexCorp for years. For _years_! Now, when I think back, I keep remembering what I did before Strex hired me. Not just my work, but my life—two-day weekends and vacation days, going to bed without taking a pill and waking up without taking another one. Companies where no employees were retrained, and labs where no researchers ever...Carlos, what were we doing? You, me, Fritz, all our colleagues...we were scientists; we're supposed to be rational, ethical—what were we _doing_ , working for them?"

Nisa's voice, climbing high, breaks and drops to a whisper. "Or, not you...Dana told me what they did, retraining you against your will. But I applied for StrexCorp; I went to their interviews. I _wanted_ to be hired. I was so happy to get their offer—my son had just been born, I couldn't get my old job back, and it seemed like a...a _perfect_ opportunity. I never imagined that I'd...when I think of the things that happened to my co-workers, the Recitations, the supervisors..."

"You went through the company orientation, didn't you?" Carlos asks. "And they made you sign the employee contract."

"They didn't _make_ me." Nisa rubs her brow with her free hand. "There was so much paperwork, filing for my visa, but StrexCorp made it so simple. They filled out all the forms and releases, and showed me where to sign. And I did, gladly. It was all voluntary. The contract, the work I did—the company never forced me to do anything. Even when I was brought in for retraining, I went willingly. I didn't _want_ to be retrained, but it was in my contract..."

"They retrained you because of what you figured out about the bloodstones, how Strex had stolen them, and what they were trying to do with them," Carlos says. "Even after so long with the company, you still cared what your science was used for."

"I didn't care enough," Nisa says. "I could've quit the moment I found out! Or when they brought me in for retraining, but I didn't. It wasn't that I was afraid to leave; it didn't even occur to me that I could."

"It didn't occur to me, either," Carlos says. "Not until I met Dana, and started listening to Cecil's broadcast. That's how Strex wants it for all their employees. They don't have to force anyone to work for them, if we don't realize that we have any other choice. Until they've hired everybody, and then there won't _be_ any other choices—no other way to exist, except working in a Strex facility and buying Strex products and living your perfect Strex life. However long the employee handbook defines an efficient lifespan to be."

"And that's what you were trying to stop," Nisa says. "Until they captured you."

Carlos shakes his head. "No," he denies. He thinks of the dream Dana woke him from, what fragments he retains. He doesn't remember what his mission was, only its failure. _I didn't save Night Vale._ "I wasn't trying to take down StrexCorp; I was just trying to save my town. My life. That's why I came to Desert Bluffs, to protect Night Vale. And I failed."

He touches his neck, feeling the cold metal of the badge. "Nisa, what do you know about the Employee of the Month program?"

"It's a great..." Nisa shuts her mouth so sharply her teeth click, cutting off the automatic reply. Dana puts her hand on the older woman's shoulder to steady her, and Nisa presses her own hand over Dana's, as she says, more slowly, "It's _supposed_ to be a great honor. To be selected—chosen. Blessed, Fritz would say."

"Chosen for what?"

"This month, it'll be the quarterly report."

Carlos blinks. "The report to the stockholders?"

"To the Smiling God," Nisa says. "The Employee of the Month is chosen to directly address our...to address the Smiling God, and receive the divine guidance to steer the company toward perfection. You should have heard the last quarterly report, three months ago—it's mandatory listening, the morning of the last day of the month."

Carlos frowns, thinking back. Until he'd met Kevin in his too-intriguing person, he'd never paid as much attention to the radio in Desert Bluffs as a good employee should. But three months ago was only shortly after he started at the facility, before he was granted the bloodstone project. He hadn't yet been accustomed to how the volume was increased for the mandatory broadcasts, had jumped up from his seat at Kevin's voice, suddenly ringing out loud and chipper in his lab, _"Stay tuned now for a special report!"_

And after that..."There was a woman screaming?" Or perhaps shrieking, or howling, for ten or fifteen minutes until her voice broke; then another half an hour of broken sobs, until they quieted and finally ceased. At the time he had taken it for an extended cut of the daily Recitation.

"That was one of the longer reports," Nisa says. "They're usually under twenty minutes. But they've b-been improving the program," and she trembles, buries her face in her hands. Dana wraps a comforting arm around her shoulders, as Nisa says, choked and muffled by her hands, "I'm so sorry, Carlos. Most of us who have been with the company a while knew, but it—it's considered unprofessional, to talk about the obligations of an Employee of the Month with those employees; if a supervisor overheard..."

"I understand," Carlos says. "I was told that some of the chosen employees become company executives?"

Nisa nods, takes a hiccupping breath as she scrubs her hands over her face. "Yes. Director Aldis was an Employee of the Month. So was Miranda Cushing, the executive who gave you your badge, at the Recitation at the beginning of the month. Their promotions were both broadcast on the radio, directly after their reports."

Carlos remembers Cushing, with the steel gauntlets replacing her arms. And Aldis with the golden helm over his face. "What about the other employees? Who aren't promoted?" He doesn't remember hearing any executive promotion during his tenure at Strex.

Nisa shakes her head. "I've never met or heard of anyone who was formerly an Employee of the Month, except for the few executives."

 _The sacrifice_ , Johnny Peterson had said. The blessed chosen of the Smiling God.

"If you're that chosen Employee, then you have to get out of here, Carlos," Dana says urgently. "Now, before the end of the month—I'll talk to my friends, they—"

"Even if I could get out of this place, it won't help," Carlos says, pressing his fingers to the badge's cold metal. "The opposite—with this, Strex can track me down, wherever I go." He wonders if Peterson had been hoping he would successfully escape. If Carlos had made it back to Night Vale after all, if he had joined those last few free citizens in hiding, and then the nanomachinery had activated, summoning StrexCorp's agents, calling down the Smiling God in all his terrible glory...

He sits down on the cot, leans back against the gray steel wall. "This might be the safest place for me to be. The safest for Night Vale."

"But there must be a way to get you out of here," Dana says. "I'll talk with Tamika and my friends, maybe we can—"

"No!" Carlos holds up his hand. "Don't tell me anything else about your plans—I might give them to Strex. Or to the Smiling God—I don't know if I'll be able to stop myself, when the time comes. It doesn't matter anyway; I can't escape from what they've put in me. Their technology is in my blood itself."

He takes a breath, squares his shoulders. He's a scientist, not a hero, but he's observed enough courage to be able to imitate it. "I'm grateful you got this pip to me, Dana, so I could see you again. And I'm glad to know you're all right, Nisa. But you should leave now, keep working on your plans to save Night Vale and forget about me."

"So you're not even going to try to escape?" Dana demands. She appeals to Nisa, "Aren't scientists supposed to try all sorts of things, Nisa? Isn't that what experiments are?"

"We do," Nisa says, looking at Carlos, not Dana. There's some feeling in her eyes that he can't identify—disappointment, or grief, or maybe understanding. "But scientists also should be ethical. To ensure their experiments cause no undue harm."

Any further argument Dana would make is interrupted by the sudden brightening of the cell's dimmed lights. Carlos squints up at them, clenching his fist around the orange pip.

Nisa gives a terrified cry, cringing back from the artificial brightness. Dana takes her hand off Nisa's shoulder, and the other scientist vanishes, as the cell door's electronic bolt releases with a sharp click.

Before Carlos can say anything more to Dana, a pair of guards enter. He hastily shuts his mouth, but looks at Dana imploringly as the men grab his arms and haul him to his feet.

Dana shakes her head at his unspoken question. She doesn't turn away, doesn't disappear. "She'll be all right," she says. "Eventually; and there's nothing I can do for her now. I'm staying with you," and unheard and unperceived, she follows Carlos as he's dragged from the cell.

 

* * *

 

Instead of an interrogation chamber, the guards bring Carlos to an office. Not an executive suite, but smaller, more confidential, with a single padded chair set before a utilitarian desk. A large potted plant sits on the floor by the door, its green leaves vibrant against windowless gray walls.

Carlos recognizes the layout; it's the same floorplan as every psychiatrist's office he's been to in Strex. For a moment he hopes Dr. Tithoes has been reassigned to his case; but when the man behind the desk turns around, it's Dr. Talbot.

The interrogator looks as Carlos remembers him, from the hospital rooms that weren't really in any hospital: a imposingly heavyset man, with small, cold eyes set deep in his fleshy face, like pits in a rotting fruit. Even in person rather than over a loudspeaker, his voice has a metallically grating edge. "Hello, Carlos," he says. "Please sit down."

The guards don't give him a choice; their heavy hands push Carlos down into the seat, handcuff his wrists to the arms. Dana hovers invisibly at his side, between him and the guards. The men twitch slightly, involuntarily, whenever her insubstantial limbs overlap with theirs.

"So, Carlos," the interrogator says, "I asked to speak with you here, because in our last session you appeared amenable to productive conversation. Is that still true?"

"That depends," Carlos says. "What do you want to converse about?"

Talbot dismisses the guards with a curt nod, his eyes fixed on Carlos. Once the other men have left the office, he answers, "There are a number of topics. Primarily concerning Night Vale." He leans back in his chair, folds his hands together on his desk as he studies Carlos with his small eyes. "You remember Night Vale now?"

Carlos doesn't say anything.

Behind pursed lips, Talbot touches the tip of his tongue to his square teeth, thoughtfully. "You've already admitted that much," he reminds. "It's too late to deny it now. So do you remember everything? Have you regained all your lost memories?"

Carlos isn't wired to a polygraph now. The less Strex knows about the success of their experimental amnesia technique, the better. And the more likely they are to waste these final couple of days torturing him for information he doesn't have. "Yes," Carlos lies. "All the memory blocks have broken down; I remember everything."

"Interesting." The interrogator's tone is casual, but he watches Carlos with a keenness that's almost hungry. "So you recall, for instance, StrexCorp's first purchase in Night Vale." 

Of course, Talbot doesn't need a polygraph, if he has information easy to disprove. Carlos shakes his head, tries to sound belligerent, impatient. "Why should I tell you what you already know?"

Talbot sighs, shaking his own head ponderously. "I was hoping you'd be reasonable. But if you require persuasion..."

Carlos tenses. But Talbot doesn't summon the guards back. Instead he takes an ordinary, older model computer tablet out of his desk. He then spends a minute frowning at the device, tentatively stabbing at the touch screen with awkward fingers.

His technological ineptitude might have been amusing, if Carlos weren't gripping the arms of the padded chair he's handcuffed to, fighting to keep his breathing steady.

At last Talbot pushes the tablet across the desk. Carlos leans over to look at the screen. A video plays on it, black-and-white but high-definition, a feed from a security camera, showing an interrogation chamber.

Under the stark spotlight, Carlos's former colleague Dave is strapped to the metal chair again.

"This is in real-time," Talbot explains. Casually he reaches up, touches the wireless radio piece hooked over his left earlobe and murmurs, "Level 3 inducement, standard duration."

Over the tablet's tinny speakers comes the sharp crack of an electric jolt, and a scream from Dave. The sound is cut short when Talbot mutes the tablet, but in the video the man convulses, then sags limply in the chair.

"So," Talbot says, his hand still raised to his earpiece. "StrexCorp's first public purchase in Night Vale. That is, if you actually remember it?"

Carlos stares down at the video feed, his mouth dry and his mind blank. If he guesses wrong—

"The radio station," Dana says, speaking rapidly at his side. "That was the first business they bought out—it happened after I was lost here, but Cecil complained about it to me. There were yellow helicopters all over town that day. They know that already, it won't hurt to tell them, and Dave..."

Carlos lifts his head, meets Talbot's eyes. "Night Vale Community Radio. You came in with helicopters."

Talbot shuts his mouth—perhaps surprised? Or satisfied? His heavy features are hard to read. "It seems we have something to converse about after all." He lowers his hand from the earpiece, picks up a stylus from his desk and takes out a notepad—not electronic, but white lined paper. 

And it's not a stylus, Carlos realizes, but a pen, a blue ballpoint, like Carlos hasn't seen in...he literally has no idea how long. Talbot flips a page of the notepad, reads off it, "How many hooded figures did you observe in Night Vale? And what are their standard methods of communication?"

"Excuse me?"

"The hooded figures," Talbot repeats. Expressionless, he reaches up to his earpiece.

"Wait!" Carlos protests. "Give me a second, it's been a while...the hooded figures..." He  
lowers his head, as if studying Dave's wretched image on the tablet screen, as he glances sidelong at Dana.

His friend is glowering at Talbot in impotent, invisible anger. Carlos tilts his head toward her meaningfully, and says, "I take it the figures are causing Strex trouble, and you're hoping my information can give you ways to deal with them? Efficient, cost-effective methods?"

"Possibly," Talbot says, and Dana smiles, closer to a Strex-handbook smile than Carlos has seen from her before.

"There are a couple dozen figures, that I know of," she says, "but they're usually hidden in the dog park, so Strex probably has no good hood-count. You could tell them more?"

Carlos looks down at the tablet's screen, and says, slowly, with shammed reluctance, "Since people aren't allowed in the dog park, including scientists, we couldn't do a complete survey. But according to the statistical analysis of our observations, there are at a minimum, five hundred hooded figures in the Night Vale dog park. Most likely more, but the individual characteristics are very obscure; at first we often mistook multiple different figures for only one. As for their communication methods..."

Dana shakes her head. "I have no idea—the figures don't talk to normal citizens, that I've ever heard of. Except to order pizza, they do—did—like Big Rico's..."

"Ultra-high frequency short-burst transmissions," Carlos says. "Easily mistaken for standard background radiation; it took months of dedicated analysis to discern the patterns."

"That's helpful, thank you," Talbot says. Dana smirks spitefully, glaring at the inquisitor as he makes a note on the paper pad. Carlos tries to keep his own face blank, as Talbot flips to a new page and asks, "Regarding the pyramid which appeared the year before last, did you ever determine its origin?"

"The shiny triangle-shaped pyramid that materialized in the Memorial Meditation Zone?" Dana shrugs. "It was a just failed viral marketing campaign."

"If you're referring to the pyramid in the Meditation Zone, although it initially appeared to be a hoax, further examination suggested an extraterrestrial origin," Carlos says after a moment's consideration. "Spectrographic analysis showed elements in its composition not frequently found on Earth, in particular a high concentration of platinum."

Talbot nods and makes another note, as Carlos privately wonders how much of Strex's finances might be dedicated to tracking down a dematerialized advertisement.

The lies taste sweet and sharp on his tongue, but the real victory is time. Every second Carlos is speaking is another second his former colleague in the interrogation chair is spared. Every second is another second closer to the end of the day, to end of the month. Another second that Strex won't get anything useful out of Carlos. 

"—And what can you tell me about the angels?" Talbot asks.

"Angels?" Carlos repeats, baffled. He waits, but Dana doesn't reply, even to echo his confusion.

Carlos straightens up in the chair, makes a show of stretching. His hands are cuffed in place, but he twists his spine, casually turning toward Dana. She's still present, not vanished as he feared; but she's clapped a hand over her mouth, and her eyes have gone wide, liquid with tears. She stutters through her fingers, "A-angels aren't real. The City Council told us so."

"Angels aren't real," Carlos tells Talbot. "As per the Night Vale City Council."

"We're aware. Tell me anything else you know about them," Talbot says. His voice is the same level monotone, but his pen is poised over his notepad. "For instance, how many of the hierarchical tiers are vulnerable to focused bloodstone radiation?"

It's an oddly precise if incomprehensible question. Carlos looks at Dana, but her face is hidden in her hands. She shakes her head, a quick jerky motion of denial. Her shoulders are trembling.

Carlos licks his lips, prevaricates, "I think that, ah, according to our research, the lower tiers of angel are affected by electromagnetism—"

Talbot sighs, sets his pen down on the notepad, precisely perpendicular to the blue-lined sheets. With the same businesslike precision he touches his earpiece and commands, "Level four."

On the tablet's screen, Dave the scientist writhes and shudders, arching against the straps as his mouth gapes in silenced agony.

"Stop!" Carlos yells, fighting against his own manacles. If he could he would yank the earpiece out of Talbot's ear, but he can't even reach the tablet. "Why are you hurting him? I was talking, I'm cooperating!"

The interrogator doesn't even glance at the screen, watching Carlos instead. "You will answer my questions promptly and honestly."

"I can't answer honestly when I don't understand the question!" Carlos protests. On the screen, Dave slumps back into the chair's metal embrace. The video is too small for Carlos to see whether he's still breathing. "How am I supposed to know anything about imaginary beings?"

"So you never observed an angel, in all your time in Night Vale? Or obtained a specimen for study?"

"Scientists aren't in the habit of studying things that aren't real." When Talbot reaches up to his earpiece, Carlos cries, "I'm telling the truth! Put _me_ in that chair if you don't believe me! I'm a scientist, not priest or a theologian; I don't believe in angels, or know any angelic lore—"

"Your beliefs and mythology are both irrelevant." Talbot leans back in his chair, rolling his pen between his stubby fingers. "Our interest is in the agenda of very real, very dangerous beings."

He rolls the pen back and forth, back and forth. Then he puts it down again.

"Please," Carlos begs, "don't hurt him. I'll answer your damn questions, just ask me something that I _can_ answer—"

Talbot shakes his head, picks up the tablet and laboriously moves his fingers across it. When he sets the computer down again, the screen shows a different view—still a black and white video, but not the interrogation chamber.

"If angels don't exist," Talbot asks, "then how would you, as a scientist, explain this subject, obtained from the escort of one such nonexistent being?"

In the video, a pair of uniformed guards stand watch on either side of a wheeled medical gurney of rigid steel. A man is tightly bound to the cot, straps buckled across his chest and limbs, with an IV in his arm.

He's also gagged and blindfolded—not hooded, but those black bands crossing his features obscure them in the small video window. But by his hair and build it's not Dave. Nor Johnny Peterson, nor Fritz, nor anyone else Carlos immediately recognizes. There's nothing especially distinctive about him, though somehow he feels familiar...

The volume has been unmuted, so the rasp of soft, steady breathing sounds through the tablet's speakers. Talbot taps the screen, zooming in on the man's face. By the lax angle of his head, he might be asleep, or drugged unconscious. It's difficult to tell for sure, with his eyes and mouth covered.

The narrow blindfold might pass for a mask, but really it's the strap across his mouth which makes him hard to recognize, when that's his best-known feature. But in the close-up Carlos knows his face—could identify him solely by the skipped beat of his heart.

He stares down at the tablet screen, struggling to understand. This makes no sense. Even if Johnny Peterson had mentioned Carlos's unlikely obsession, Strex wouldn't subject one of their most valuable employees to such treatment just to threaten Carlos. 

But why else would they imprison Kevin? The very spokesman for company policy? This must be a trick. Makeup and a performance, or else simply a faked video, for some purpose Carlos can't fathom. Do they really think he would give up Night Vale for someone he barely knows?

Tearing his gaze away from the radio host's bruised, gagged visage, Carlos looks at his interrogator. Talbot is leaning back in his chair, but his eyes on Carlos are anything but relaxed, as intensely fascinated as any scientist before an experiment. 

"Carlos, what's wrong?" and Carlos feels the cool draft of Dana's insubstantial hand on his back as she leans over him to look at the tablet screen. "Is it somebody you know—"

Then she gasps, flinching back so hard she stumbles. She reaches uselessly for the desk to steady herself; when her hands pass through the wood she braces them on her own thighs, shuddering. "No," she says, "no, it can't be—they were supposed to protect him—!"

Carlos fights to keep his composure. Dana knows Kevin? How?

He failed to hide his shock, to tell by the smile curling Talbot's lips. "This is also in real-time," the interrogator says, and touches his earpiece. "Stimulate the subject," he instructs.

One of the guards standing by the gurney turns and raises a slender baton, its polished metal shining white on the colorless video—a supervisor's inspiration rod. With businesslike poise he sets the rod to the man's neck and triggers it.

Strapped down and probably drugged as the man is, he can barely twitch, but through the gag and the tablet's speakers comes a faint, involuntary moan.

It's not Kevin's voice.

"Oh, Cecil," Dana says, her own voice choked with despair. "How could this happen? I have to tell the others—what are we going to do now—" She ducks and vanishes like a popped soap bubble.

Oblivious to her departure, Dr. Talbot taps his pen on the screen, its ballpoint tip resting on the black gag silencing the Voice of Night Vale. "Now, Carlos," the interrogator says, "shall we continue our conversation?"


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today marks a year since I started posting this story. Wow, I never thought I'd be writing it for this long! But we've definitely entered the endgame now, so it shouldn't be that much longer. (Fingers crossed!)
> 
> So much thanks to everyone who's stuck with this, especially everyone who's taken the time to comment--one time or on every chapter, I seriously couldn't have gotten this far without you, knowing that somebody cared about what happened next. It's been awesome to have you all along for the ride--now buckle in, we're approaching the final corner, and it's a sharp one...

Carlos stares down at the man on the screen, bound and drugged, blindfolded and gagged. Kevin—only it's not Kevin. Except it must be Kevin. Carlos's fingers are digging into the padded chair arms so hard that he can feel the pressure against each individual finger. He can feel the blood heating his veins—not his blood, not blood at all; by now at least seventy-five percent of what his heart pumps he cannot call his own. But it runs as hot now, carrying adrenaline to charge every cell in his body.

He recognizes the man on this screen. Like he recognized Kevin, the first time he saw the radio host, that inexplicable surge of emotion, affection and desire.

_How? Why?_

It makes no sense. It makes perfect sense—no, _imperfect_ sense; illogical, ludicrous, glorious nonsense. His body knows Cecil in his dreams, and waking as well, apparently, whatever his mind has forgotten.

"Carlos," Dr. Talbot says. The interrogator's voice is dispassionate but insistent. "Are you going to talk? Or do you require additional incentive?" and he taps his pen on the screen, the metal ballpoint clicking on the glass.

Carlos struggles to marshal his thoughts. He can't take his eyes off the image on the screen, his gaze tracing the outline of Cecil's limp body, pixel by pixel, matching it to the memory of the dream, the embrace, the feel of Cecil against him.

Cecil is silenced now, but Carlos knows that baritone too well to mistake it; he almost thinks he can recognize even the faint wheeze of Cecil's breaths, through the tablet speakers. Carlos touches his tongue to his lips, though it's too dry to wet them; his own voice cracks when he speaks, his throat parched. "How...how do I know this is actually in real-time? Ungag him, let me speak to him."

Talbot's lips twitch, as if trying to break out of their corporately calm smile. "Honestly, Carlos, I'd hope you'd have more respect for our intelligence than that. But if you need proof," and he touches his earpiece to address the guards standing by Cecil, "Please apply algesic stimulation to..." He raises an inquiring eyebrow at Carlos. "Which body part would you prefer?"

"—No!" Carlos gasps, as on the screen the guard raises his inspiration rod. "Don't—I'll cooperate; what do you want to know?"

At another word from Talbot, the guard lowers his rod. The interrogator folds his hands into a pyramid on his desk, stares at Carlos over them. "Where are you getting your information about Night Vale?"

Carlos strives to make his voice even. "From my scientific studies there, of course."

"That could only be true if you remembered those studies." Talbot's small eyes glitter. "Which I don't believe you do, or else you'd have knowledge of the angels. You've broken our basic conditioning, and obviously you know enough to identify Cecil Palmer; but your memories aren't yet completely restored, are they?"

 _Palmer_ , Carlos repeats inside his head, as he stares down at the tablet. It's an unexpected gift. He'd never asked Dana for Cecil's family name. "That's not true—"

"Then tell me, where is the Night Vale Ralph's located? Who is the retiring mayor? Keep in mind, if you answer incorrectly, your former lover will pay the price for your uncooperative attitude," Talbot says, tapping his pen on the tablet screen.

Cecil is going to be hurt because of Carlos, again; and all Carlos can do is watch, as helpless as if Cecil were still in Night Vale. Dana would know the answers to Talbot's questions. But Dana is gone. Carlos has no allies here.

...No allies. But someone who wants him, or wants to use him. Over the roar of blood in his ears Carlos hears himself say, "...Peterson."

"What's that?"

"Contact Peterson—you know, the marketing VP," Carlos says. "Tell him I'll take his offer."

Talbot tilts his head. "Peterson already went out on a limb for you. I doubt he'd be foolish enough to do so again."

Carlos stares down at the tablet, at Cecil. "Just call him," he says.

The interrogator shrugs, a roll of his heavy shoulders. "I needed to consult with him anyway." He takes the tablet back, fiddles with it for at least a minute before he finally manages to bring up the communication app, requests, "VP Johnathan Peterson," and sets the computer back on the desk.

On the screen, the room with Cecil is displaced by a new video window. Johnny Peterson is at his desk, the sun shining in the window behind him. As soon as the call connects he snaps, _"About damn time, Doctor; have you figured out yet whether he's—ah. Carlos."_ The executive squints into the screen. He's got a drink in hand, the sunlight glinting on the tumbler's crystal; his hair is mussed and he's wearing no tie, and his tone is strange, flattened by the tinny speakers and curter than Carlos has heard from him before, even during those newly remembered interrogation sessions when he was first captured. _"What's this about?"_

Carlos swallows. "I'll do it," he says. "I'll become an executive, and give you information on Night Vale, if—"

Before he can propose an offer, Peterson barks a harsh laugh. _"Nice try, but that ship's sailed."_ He takes a drink from his glass—not his first, by how easily he gulps it. _"And considering how I was just called on the carpet by the upper-ups, I'm going down with it."_

"Perhaps not," Talbot says.

Peterson sets down the tumbler so hard it rattles his tablet, his video image jittering and then smoothing out. _"Oh?"_ He looks from the interrogator to Carlos. _"Explain."_

"This subject's memories aren't yet completely restored. I suspect there were other factors in his breaking the conditioning, as yet unaccounted for. So the fundamentals of the technique remain effective." 

_"The Board of Directors doesn't give a damn about details now_ ," Peterson says. _"The only thing they see is that I've failed to deliver. They're looking to make an example out of someone—with these winged bastards beating down the doors, they need a show of strength."_

"What if we did deliver?" Talbot says. "Offer a proven, prompt method for dealing with recalcitrant recruits. Such as our latest acquisition."

 _"Huh."_ Peterson leans back in his chair, stroking his chin. _"It'd be a hell of a pitch. Give them another host in Strex's employment, not in six months, but today..."_

"Plus a week for the orientation," Talbot says.

 _"Close enough,"_ Peterson says. _"I take your point. Except we still don't—"_

"As I suggested before, a physical examination of the key neurological structures may provide us the necessary data," Talbot says. "With your permission, since by now we've had ample opportunity for non-invasive observation?"

Peterson looks at Carlos. The intensity of his gaze is familiar, but not its calculated coldness. _"There's one problem...if you chop open his skull now, it's way too late to prepare a replacement Employee of the Month. The Board's not going to appreciate that at all."_

"My _skull_ —?"

"In fact, that works in our favor," Talbot says over Carlos's question. "The nanite matrix in his circulatory system will help maintain his autonomous functions following the operation, preserving sufficient physical and mental capacity for the limited demands of a quarterly report."

Peterson is still staring at Carlos, as if he's the last unsolved variable in a career-making equation. He picks up his glass, drains it and says, _"Do it. I want a full report by nine AM tomorrow."_

"Noon," Talbot says. "It's too late to begin tonight; I can operate first thing tomorrow morning."

_"Fine. Noon tomorrow."_

"Peterson—Johnny—please—" Carlos starts to say, but Peterson reaches for his tablet, and the video cuts off with the call.

Talbot is smiling, professionally broad and satisfied. He touches his earpiece and summons back the guards. 

"Wait," Carlos says, grabbing the arms of his chair, trying to block them from releasing the manacles. "What do you want? What data are you looking for in my brain? If this is about Strex's retraining—you said it yourself, I've already broken your conditioning; dissecting my brain won't show you how—"

"No, but that's largely irrelevant," Talbot says. "The information we require, you don't remember—ironically, or perhaps appropriately. Also unfortunate, I admit; it would make this simpler. Though honestly you should be grateful; few Employees of the Month get this mercy. Come the day after tomorrow, you won't have enough consciousness remaining for the Smiling God to unravel. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to ready the OR for tomorrow's examination..."

 

* * *

 

When Dana finally materializes in the center of the cell, the only thing that stops Carlos from grabbing her by the shoulders is that his hands pass through her when he tries. Instead he's left snatching at empty air, as he demands, "Was that really Cecil? On the video, that was him?"

"It was him." Dana says. Her eyes are puffy and reddened. "Strex captured him, a couple of days ago, Tamika just found out..."

Carlos sits down heavily on the cot. It's only corroboration of what he'd already assumed, but the confirmation is still overwhelming. That he's seen Cecil now, that he now knows what Cecil looks like. The Voice of Night Vale, who could be the spitting image of the Voice of Desert Bluffs—there must be an explanation, but there's no time to consider that mystery. "How did Strex get him? You said he was safe—"

"Not safe, no one is ever safe. I said he was fine," Dana corrects, "and he should have been! He was with the...with my friends; they should've been able to protect him, even there—"

"Where was Cecil caught?"

"In the Night Vale radio station," Dana says. "The plan I told you about, the uprising we're preparing for—we were counting on Cecil to give the signal, to let everyone know the time has come. But now...his being captured is a signal in itself, I suppose. But we still need him to have any chance of doing this."

Carlos frowns. "Does Cecil have information about Strex's weaknesses? Or is he that skilled a fighter?"

"No," Dana says, "but no revolution will succeed without Cecil. How would we even know we'd won, without the Voice of Night Vale reporting it? But now that Strex has him—oh, what are we going to do? What if they change him, what if they turn him against us, like—" She claps her mouth shut with a remorseful look at Carlos.

"Like they did to me," Carlos finishes for her. 

Dana wraps her arms around herself, as if she's freezing in that otherworld desert. "If Cecil forgets about us and starts working for them—"

"They haven't taken his memories yet—he still remembers me, anyway," Carlos says without thinking.

"Oh, thank the void!" Dana sounds so immediately, palpably relieved that Carlos feels guilty. "So did you get a chance to speak with him, after I left?"

"No," he admits. "Not then. I just...have a hunch. It's unlikely they'd need to blindfold and gag Cecil, if they'd already retrained him."

"That makes sense." Dana nods, still looking hopeful. "Maybe they're not doing that retraining anymore? Since they've had Dave for longer and haven't taken his memories."

"No, they want to retrain Cecil. To use him like they used me." What had Talbot offered Peterson? _A method for dealing with our most recent acquisition._ "They just haven't decided yet how to do it. It's more difficult with Cecil than it was with me, apparently." Because Cecil is a Night Vale native? Or was Carlos's mind just that much more easily broken? "I don't know why they haven't retrained Dave yet—maybe he was left as a control case. Or maybe their retraining technique wasn't as effective on him for some reason. But they're working now to improve it." 

"But if Strex makes Cecil their employee—"

"It's all right, Dana. They won't get the chance to try—you're going to save him before they can," Carlos says. "Cecil, and Dave, too, you're going to get them out of here. Before Strex can do anything more to either of them." He holds out his hand, opens his fist. He's been clenching the orange pip so tightly it's left an impression in his palm, the white seed sitting in a reddened round spot, encircled by crescent marks from his fingernails. 

Dana looks down at it, confused. "The pip?"

"They can escape with it," Carlos says. "From this place, if not to Night Vale. Cracking open the seed should release enough of the transdimensional catalyst to bring a couple of people across to your dimension, just like Nisa was transported there. It's not an ideal solution, but it'll get them out of Strex's hands. You just have to find a way to deliver this to them, and I'm sure you can figure that out, you and Nisa, and your friends."

Dana doesn't take the offered seed. "But you need it; without the pip, I won't be able to communicate with you."

"That's okay, don't worry about me," Carlos says. He stares down at his hand. The imprints of the seed and his nails have already faded—his skin's natural resiliency? Or is it thanks to the nanomachines in his bloodstream? "It's Cecil and Dave who need your help now. You have to get them out of here, as soon as possible." If whatever data Talbot hopes to extract from Carlos's brain is the key to perfecting their new retraining procedure, if it allows them to replicate it, to do to Cecil what was done to Carlos—he raises his eyes to Dana's, pleading. "You can't let Strex take Cecil's memories; you have to save him before that. You have to!" 

For Carlos to forget Night Vale had been bad enough. But for Cecil to forget...Carlos remembers Cecil's voice on the radio, the passion, the devotion, whenever he spoke of his besieged town. Cecil loves Night Vale; for it to be stolen from him—for him to be unknowingly turned against his own community—is unthinkable, unacceptable.

Though it's selfish, too, Carlos knows. More than Night Vale, he doesn't want Cecil to forget him, either.

At one time, Carlos believed he could accept his own mortality, so long as he left behind a legacy of scientific discovery. Death didn't frighten him, not if he could die knowing he had advanced humanity's pursuit of knowledge. But that was the ideal of a younger scientist, a younger man (and when did he forget about that dream; was it Strex which took it from him, or was it lost before?) 

Now the highest hopes he has for his life's work is that his research will be forgotten or discarded before it can do too much harm. Instead it's come down to this, not what he knows, but who. After dedicating his life to scientific study, striving to learn the secrets of the universe, in the end these are the only truths Carlos is certain of: that he loved Cecil, that Cecil loved him. And here, in this cell, that's enough. As long as Cecil survives and remembers him, Carlos doesn't fear what's coming.

Maybe that satisfaction is a only defense mechanism, a temporary distraction from the terror of the mindless oblivion before him. But then, it only needs last Carlos until tomorrow morning.

"Carlos, it's all right," Dana says, laying an imperceptible hand on his arm. "Even if Strex takes Cecil's memories, he'll remember you. Just like you remember him—you recognized him as soon as you saw him on that video, I saw how you reacted. No matter what Strex does to him, Cecil will know you, you'll see."

Carlos ducks his head from her encouraging smile, not sure if the lump rising in his throat is a laugh or a sob. He can't tell Dana about Kevin, doesn't have the strength or the time to untangle that knot of confused desire. It hardly matters anyway, now. Instead he says, "I wish I could—I wish I'd have a chance to see him again."

"You will," Dana says. "that's why I'm here. We have a new plan. I was talking with Tamika and the—and my friends, and there might be a way to get you out of here, before the end of the month. And then you can help us save Cecil, and be together again with him."

"Your friends who were with Cecil before? The angels?"

Dana twitches, so hard her very image wavers, like a reflection in a rippling pool. "How..."

"You've mentioned your friends before," Carlos says. "The ones who told you that if I went to the otherworld, that I could never return to Night Vale. And Talbot said Cecil was escorted by angels when he was captured. So, logically, your friends—some of your friends—are angels."

"Angels aren't real," Dana says, but her voice catches on the denial. Glossy tears fill her eyes; she wipes them away with the heel of her hand, impatiently, as if she's more annoyed than sad. "So I can't talk about them with you."

"Even if you can't talk about them, I know that Strex fears them," Carlos says. "Talbot wouldn't have bothered interrogating me about them, if they weren't powerful enough to be significant. They couldn't protect Cecil before, but can they save him now?"

"Not Cecil," Dana says, "but you. Tomorrow night we'll be preparing with a ceremony, all of us who are still free, with the bloodstones we have left. If it goes right, then it might cause enough of a distraction to make a window of opportunity for my friends. They'll be able to breach Strex's security, long enough to get you out of here. And then we can get that Employee of the Month badge off of you, there has to be a way. You have to come back to Night Vale, Carlos. After everything that's happened, you have to come home."

It takes Carlos a moment to identify the warmth filling his chest. It's gratitude, but without the anxious relief of temporary mercy, without the weight of obligation; just the heartening certainty that Dana cares. "After everything I've done," he says, "I don't know if I could call it home again. But I told you, don't worry about me. You don't need to save me—by tomorrow night it won't matter anyway."

"So you've figured out how to escape? I knew you'd come up with something!"

"No," Carlos says. "But after tomorrow morning there won't be anyone left to save, not really," and he briefly explains Talbot's operation.

Dana's eyes widen in growing horror as she listens. "No—no, they can't do this to you—!"

"They can and will," Carlos says. "There's nothing I can do to stop them."

"What about the orange pip? Couldn't you crack it open yourself, use it to come here? Even if you couldn't return to Night Vale afterwards, at least you'd escape this—"

Carlos shakes his head. "I'm still Employee of the Month. Even if I could get off this badge, it's in my blood; I can't remove it, in any dimension. If I go to where you are now, I'll be bringing Strex and their Smiling God with me."

Dana shudders. "Then can you just tell them what they want to know? So they don't have to cut it out of your head?"

"I don't know what they're trying to find out," Carlos says. "I think it has to do with perfecting their retraining technique, but I don't know how or what they're looking for. Talbot said I wouldn't remember. For all I know, I never knew it to begin with, even when I had my memories."

Dana is standing very still. Her voice is soft, but firm; resolute. "What if you told them about me? If you used the orange pip to show them...even if it's not what they want, it's valuable information. Maybe you could convince them—"

"No," Carlos stops her. "I won't betray you to save myself—never. I'm not going to betray Night Vale again. Not willingly."

He reaches out his hand, and Dana extends her own, so their fingers overlap. "My hope now," he tells her, "is that Talbot is wrong, and whatever information he wants out of me he won't be able to find in his examination. If I'm very lucky, then he's also wrong about my chances of surviving it, and I won't be available to give their quarterly report. But even if enough of me remains for that, it will be the last thing I'll ever do for Strex. They won't be able to use me again.

"It's Cecil you have to think about now. If your friends the angels really can get in here, then they can rescue him. And then Cecil will be back in time for the uprising."

Dana shakes her head. "It's no good; I've already asked my friends. We don't know where Cecil is, whether he's even still in Night Vale or Desert Bluffs. Wherever Strex is holding him, they're hiding it somehow, even from my friends. They might be using the bloodstones...or maybe not!" she amends, seeing Carlos's horrified expression. "Strex has the Smiling God; they've always been strong. Too strong, maybe. Otherwise we would've defeated them months ago. They know enough to keep Cecil unconscious, too, or else he might be able to contact us. Either way, there's no way to locate him; and if we can't find Cecil, then we can't save him."

"Then you shouldn't be here," Carlos says. "You should be searching for Cecil, figuring out how to find him, and Dave, too. They're what's important, not me."

"Everyone is important," Dana says. "Or else no one is. It depends on your perspective. We don't know where Cecil or Dave are, but we know where you are—you might be the only one we can save now. And that's what Cecil would want us to do. Just as you want to save him."

She's not wrong, that's the worst part. Carlos may not have most of his memories of Cecil, but he's sure that Dana is right in this.

_"Even if Night Vale needs heroes now...as selfish as it is for me to say, I wanted my boyfriend more."_

Though that's not really Cecil, only the subconscious version of him Carlos has dreamed about.

....Dreamed about in the last few days, more vividly than he's ever before. The last few days, since Strex captured Cecil, apparently.

That's probably just a coincidence. The dreams are most likely due to stress, or to the return of memories triggered by recent events. Dreams are simply tricks of perception, after all, subconscious processing of memory.

And angels are simply traditions of religious iconography. And bloodstones are simply obsidian with iron inclusions.

Carlos jumps to his feet to face Dana. "What if I could find Cecil, figure out where Strex is holding him, so you and your friends can get him out of here? It's a long shot, but there may be a way I can communicate with him."

It's almost frightening, how Dana's whole face fills with hope. "Scientifically?"

"No," Carlos says. "Anything but. What do you know about walking in other people's dreams?"


	26. Chapter 26

Humming idly to himself, Carlos grabs the next envelope of sand, using tweezers to transfer a few particles onto the microscope slide. Soil analysis is dangerously close to botany, but given the trace elements he's identified across these samples, who could blame him for wandering astray of his usual fields? And the visual examination is proving as fascinating as the spectrographic breakdown, if no more believable—

 _"Carlos,"_ murmurs a voice, as a touch like a cold draft brushes his arm.

Carlos starts hard enough to rock the stool under him. He grabs the lab counter to steady himself as he looks back over his shoulder.

No one is behind him. And that wasn't any of his colleagues' voices. No one is here anyway; Carlos made an effort to come in early today. While he appreciates intellectual collaboration as much as the next scientist, sometimes he enjoys having his lab to himself—

...No, this is not his lab. At least, not his lab at the StrexCorp R&D facility. This lab has windows, their blinds tightly drawn, but sunlight seeps around the edges, gold glimmering over the clutter of glass and metal equipment, battered cabinets and scuffed floors. The three-legged wooden stool under him is not up to company code, for all Carlos is balancing on it like he's had months to adjust to its unstable arrangement. Its shortened leg rattles on the tile floor when he stands up.

 _"Look for him,"_ whispers that faint, ghostly voice. _"Don't wake up yet, find him..."_

"Dana?" Carlos asks, recognizing the voice. "I can't see you..." His fist is clenched, but when he opens it, it's empty; he's clutching empty space.

He momentarily panics when he realizes he can no longer hear Dana anymore—he's lost the orange pip, and with it his only way to communicate; even if he finds Cecil now—

—Finding Cecil. That's what he's supposed to do—that's what he's doing, right now, in this dream.

 _"I don't know much about dream-walking,"_ Dana had told him, _"just the basic emergency training all interns get, and my certification has probably expired by now. Once you're asleep I might be able to nudge you, but you'll have to figure out how to find Cecil on your own..."_

The evidence suggested Carlos could, given that he'd managed it at least twice before, without even meaning to. Though like so many things, this kind of communication is apparently easier when you aren't trying. Considering he finds himself alone in his lab now, with Cecil nowhere in sight.

Carlos turns slowly in place, looking at his dim surroundings. Everything is familiar, yet not; he can't anticipate what's not before his eyes, and yet everything he sees seems just as it should be, nothing unexpected or out of place. He's wary of trying to focus too hard; questioning his perceptions might wake himself up. At the same time, it's impossible not to be curious—if this is indeed his lab in Night Vale, is it drawn from his forgotten memories? Or is it more figurative, a subconscious interpolation of his inner longings?

Either way, if he draws back the window blind, what will he see behind it? Even meters away, he can feel the desert sun's scorching heat beating against the blinds. One of the lower plastic slats is twisted, letting through a single piercing ray that casts a glowing yellow triangle of light on the floor.

That sunlight is blinding, brilliant enough to make his eyes throb, to make his chest throb. He takes a step toward the window, hand raised towards the cord, to open the blinds and let in the light—

A sharp crackling noise calls him up short. Carlos turns from the window towards the burst of static, now subsiding. There's a radio sitting on the counter right behind him. A classic vintage set, with an arched wooden case and woven paneling over the speakers.

Of course Carlos must have had a radio in the lab, to listen to Cecil, back when he hosted a community news show instead of a pirated call to revolution. Though is this actually what that radio looked like, Carlos wonders, or is he simply imagining the kind of magnificent radio that should be broadcasting Cecil?

Opting not to over-examine that aspect of his subconscious, Carlos goes to the radio, turns the heavy knobs. Their grooved metal is cold under his fingers, and the radio squeals and hisses disapprovingly at its treatment.

The dial has no numbers, instead arcane runes and mathematical symbols, and the indicator changes color and shape as it passes over them, as if it's trying to avoid certain channels, or else is striving for others.

Carlos turns the dial down to the very bottom, marked with the lowercase phi of the golden ratio, and the static buzzes, then clears. The voice that emanates from the screened speakers, like dark energy streaming from the galactic core, is so familiar that Carlos's heart clenches. _"Listeners...if I have any listeners...if ever I have had any listeners, if anyone could ever have existed at all in this void which I find myself...though I suppose to find myself, I would have to exist at all, and that I am beginning to doubt. Or perhaps ending to doubt, as there is no evidence to support that existence, save my own dubious belief in it."_

"Cecil?" Carlos cries. "Cecil, are you there?"

_"All is silent here; I cannot even hear my own voice echoing back. If my tongue is moving against my teeth, I cannot feel it, cannot feel the breath in the lungs I may not or perhaps have never possessed..."_

Of course Cecil can't hear him; it's just a broadcast radio, not two-way.

Except this is a dream, and Carlos is dreaming it for one most important purpose. He closes his eyes, reaches out his hand to grab for the microphone that should be there, that _must_ be there—

His fingers close around a little square box. Carlos looks down. On the counter before him, where the vintage radio just was, now sits an old ham radio set—his old childhood set, with the open board he assembled from a book when he was eleven.

The speakers pop and fizz. Carlos adjusts the dials, now turning the frequency all the way up to the commercial registers. Finally he again finds Cecil, saying, _"I can see nothing...blackness, I would call it; but maybe I'm only imagining I know what the color black looks like. Maybe I've imagined color, and sight, and—"_

"Cecil!" Carlos shouts into the microphone, "Cecil, can you hear me?"

The static crackles; then Cecil says—stammers, his smooth voice catching unprofessionally, _"C-Carlos?"_

"I can hear you, Cecil," Carlos says, "I'm listening, I'm here—"

 _"Oh,"_ Cecil breathes, _"oh, Carlos, I thought—I didn't think you would come back—"_

"I tried," Carlos says, "and I would have tried sooner, only I didn't know, I didn't know to go back to Night Vale—"

 _"I meant, back in my dreams,"_ Cecil says gently. _"As I am dreaming, aren't I?"_

"I believe so," Carlos says. "Though it's difficult to empirically prove. Following Occam's razor, the most plausible explanation is that you're dreaming—or rather, since I'm cognizant of my own consciousness, that I'm dreaming, about you again. But speaking unscientifically, hopefully, we're both dreaming together now, since I have to talk to you. Cecil, do you know that you were captured by Strex?"

 _"Is that what happened?"_ Cecil sounds curious more than confirming. _"I suppose it would explain my difficulties...the last thing I remember being awake for, we had stepped through the door into the station, and then there was...a loud sound? A shout, or an explosion; or perhaps it was the impact of a meteor, or a broken promise, or else an early sunrise. And since then I've been going through all one hundred and eight beginner methods for escaping a nightmare, but none of them have woken me. I was starting to regret not taking the advanced course on Jungian navigation, but it was my last semester and I still needed a language credit..."_

"You're sedated," Carlos tells him, "that's why you can't wake up."

 _"Really? How uncommonly helpful of Strex,"_ Cecil remarks.

"Helpful?"

 _"I've never been that good at maintaining a trance,"_ Cecil says. _"I've tried dreaming to you before, but it's never worked this well. I can hear your voice so clearly now, Carlos. And last time, it was as if you were right there with me...until you went away, and everything went empty, indefinite. Like waking on the thirty-first day of a month that only has thirty."_

"So you've been unconscious but aware since you were captured? Trapped in your own head?" Was that deliberate on Strex's part, a planned torture for the Voice of Night Vale? Or an unanticipated reaction to the drugs? "Cecil, I'm so sorry. If I'd known, I'd have tried to reach you sooner—"

 _"I told you before, and it continues to be true, that any number of trials would be worth it to see you again,"_ Cecil says. _" Or hear you, in this case. Besides, it's hardly becoming of me to complain about a little sensory deprivation or existential torment, when you've been deprived of existence itself."_

"—but I haven't been," Carlos gasps, before he can reconsider. "Or, not like you mean—in a manner of speaking it might be true; the man you knew, Carlos the Scientist, he's...I'm not exactly him, though I want to be. But objectively, literally, speaking, I never died. I'm not dead."

 _"Oh,"_ Cecil says. _"That's...nice."_

He doesn't sound as if he means it. "Cecil?" Carlos asks. "Do you understand? I'm alive; I'm being held in a Strex facility, very possibly the same one you're in now—"

 _"Yes, I understand,"_ Cecil says politely. _"It's very...it's very kind."_

"Kind...?"

 _"Of my subconscious,"_ Cecil says. _"To give me this, out of all the secret terrors and private horrors it could have offered me. I could be wrestling with a personification of self-doubt, or be smothered by a many-layered persecution complex. Instead I'm talking with you, and it's wonderful. It's just, I had hoped, idealistically, unreasonably, that it was really Carlos I was speaking to. That in my altered state, I might have managed to reach so far, and if Carlos were reaching back..."_

"I am," Carlos says, "and you are—Cecil, it's me," and he's not sure if he wants to laugh or cry, that he knows exactly how Cecil feels. "In all honesty I'm still not one hundred percent sure I'm talking to you, and not a projection of my own subconscious—and as we previously discussed, there is no absolute way to prove anything, in the subjective reality of dreams—but I swear to you, I'm real. And really here, and really alive."

_"So you mean to say, rather than being killed as was reported, you were instead captured by Strex? And have been imprisoned by them, for these past four months, waiting to be freed?"_

"More or less—maybe a bit less than more, at points. But fundamentally, yes."

Cecil is smiling; Carlos can hear it in his voice, a sad, gentle smile. _"If I may offer some constructive criticism...you would be more convincing, if you weren't saying exactly what I've imagined you saying so many, many times before."_

"Listen, Cecil, my current state of existence isn't pertinent now. It's yours that's at stake." Carlos clutches the microphone tightly, pulling it to his chest, as if it's Cecil's hand he's holding. "You're in danger. Strex has captured you—even if you don't believe me about anything else, believe that. Now Tamika and Dana and her, um, friends, can rescue you, but only if they can figure out where you are—"

 _"Dana?"_ Incredulity warps Cecil's voice. _"Of course I have faith that Tamika would be returning—but no one in Night Vale has heard anything from Dana in months. I suppose I should be glad to know I subconsciously still have hope in her, but..."_

"You should have hope in her," Carlos says. "She won't let you down—Dana's been trying to get back for all this time, and she's fighting Strex, like all of you."

_"I wouldn't doubt it. Unfortunately the real Carlos—the Carlos who is dead—never knew Dana; they never met, before she went into the dog park. So he could hardly tell me any of this now."_

"No, we didn't meet in Night Vale, but I've gotten to know her now, I never would've made it this far without her—oh, it's a long story and I wish I could tell it to you, but there's no time for that, Cecil. Right now we need to figure out how to locate you—we're going to save you, Cecil. I'm going to save you—after everything I've done, I have to save you—"

_"All you've done...?"_

Carlos knows that he should save this for Dana to tell Cecil—or not to tell at all. But it's his last chance to confess. Maybe it's not enough, just for Cecil to remember him; he wants forgiveness, too. "I wasn't imprisoned by Strex—I am now, but not for most of the last months. I was working for them. My memories were altered, were taken from my mind. I forgot about Night Vale...I forgot about you. I thought I was one of their researchers—Cecil, the research Strex used to find the bloodstones, that was me, that was my research. That was my fault."

Cecil doesn't say anything, but over the cheap speakers Carlos can hear the susurration of his even breaths, and knows he's still there, still listening. "Cecil, I'm sorry—I'm so sorry, and I know that just saying it in a dream isn't enough. I wish I could tell you in person, standing in front of you, so you could be sure it was really me saying it. I wish I could do more to make up for it, that I'd have the chance to right all those wrongs...I wish I knew words as I know science, I wish I had a tenth of your talent with them, so I could explain how I feel..."

 _"How many hundreds of times have I considered this_?" Cecil says—not angry, but nor absolving; his tone is reserved, contemplative. _"When we figured out that Strex had a scientist studying the bloodstones; when my damnable Desert Bluffs counterpart broadcast that insipid phone conversation...what if they weren't simply faking his voice? What if they were employing his skills?_

_"How many times have I lapsed, have I failed to stop myself from wondering, what if, what if, what if—-the question I cannot answer, cannot allow myself to answer. Hope is a beautiful, precious thing; but sometimes it can burn so fiercely it lays waste like a forest fire, blinds you to reality and leaves you kneeling in ashes. And with so much at stake...there's a time for the luxury of denial, and it's not during a dangerous resistance against a corpocratic regime."_

"But this isn't denial," Carlos says. "You have to believe me, believe what happened to me—because they might do it to you, too. You have your memories for now, but they might be taking them from you at this very moment—and if they erase Night Vale from your mind, the same as they did from mine—"

 _"Would that work on me, though?"_ Cecil says _. "Before, you weren't certain it would, since I was a Night Vale native. At least not as effectively."_

"...Before? Before when?"

 _"When we last discussed this,"_ Cecil says. _"Before you left Night Vale."_

"I don't remember," Carlos says. "I know I've lost memories, but I haven't gotten them back. Though you've told me about some things—or maybe that wasn't anything more than a dream? We were in our home, and you told me about how I'd asked you to live with me..."

 _"The condos,"_ Cecil says. _"Yes, I remember that dream, but I thought..."_ He pauses for a moment, thinking. _"So your memories haven't returned? You've...have you really forgotten all about me?"_

"I forgot everything," Carlos says. "Everything about Night Vale—I forgot that I'd ever been there, forgot everything I did and everyone I met there. A few things lingered, a few details...the first time I heard your voice on the radio in Desert Bluffs, it sounded oddly familiar; but I didn't know your name until you said it on the air."

_"You heard me on the radio? In Desert Bluffs?"_

"I procured an illicit radio. I was trying to figure out the truth, what was really going on. I'd heard of Night Vale, and I knew somehow that it meant something to me; but I couldn't find anything about it anywhere. It's like Strex has tried to erase the whole town's existence, even as they're taking everything from you..."

 _"So we were right about that,"_ Cecil says, thoughtfully. _"You were right...of course I believed you before; so maybe I still do? Or else...might it have worked then after all, if...? They said I might get a second chance, if I went with them; but I thought they meant working at the radio station, I didn't dare consider..."_

"A second chance?" Carlos repeats, confused. "What do you mean...?"

 _"But you remember me now, don't you?"_ Cecil asks. His calm tone is breaking, sharp-edged and fragile. _"Even if you've forgotten details, even if you've forgotten the time we spent together, you know me."_

"I know who you are," Carlos says. "And I know what you were to me—what you are to me; and what I am, or what I hope I am, to you. But I don't...I still don't remember why. What we've done together, what we've talked about, whatever we've promised each other—I don't remember any of it. I've had a few dreams of being together with you, but I'm not sure if any of them were events that actually happened, or only things I imagined. Strex took it all from me, every conscious memory I had of you and Night Vale." And there's no time, no chance he'll get any of it back, not in the brief time he has left...

Cecil takes a breath deep enough that Carlos can hear it over the radio. _"Carlos, if somehow, by the twist of some fate kinder than I'd ever dare believe in, this is really you...then I suppose that with everything else, you also forgot why you went to Desert Bluffs?"_

"You mean, my mission?" Carlos says. "I know it was my idea, and that I came here to fight Strex; but what I was trying to do, no, I don't remember that. I just know that whatever my experiment was, it failed."

 _"Yes,"_ Cecil says, _"and no. And if this is really you—and if this is really me—then maybe hope is worth the risk after all..."_

 

* * *

 

Carlos awakens to Dana leaning over him, saying his name, her hand a cool draft on his arm. His fingers are cramped, folded into a tight fist with his nails digging into his palm, rather than the microphone he dreamed he was clutching. The cell's lights overhead are bright.

"The lights just came on—I think it's morning," Dana says. " You've been asleep for hours; I wasn't sure if I should wake you. Did you find Cecil? Did you talk to him, do you know where he is?"

Carlos sits up, rubs his eyes. They're as gritty as if he hadn't slept a wink. He doesn't feel rested, but he doesn't feel tired, either. Anything but. Adrenaline is as potent as any of Strex's drugs. "I spoke with him," he says.

Before he can go on, the cell's door opens to admit two guards. Carlos shuts his mouth, turns away from Dana. Standing up from his cot to face the men, he tells them, "I need to speak to Dr. Talbot."

The guards don't reply. One of them is holding a hypodermic needle. Carlos raises his hands. "Listen to me, this is important. The doctor will want to hear what I have to say."

The guards continue advancing. Carlos stands his ground, tips back his head to bare his neck and points to the orange metal triangle affixed there. "I'm the Employee of the Month," he says. "I'm being prepared to host the Smiling God, the very god you worship at every morning Recitation. I have information vital to this company's success—or would you rather explain to the executives why you've defied StrexCorp's divine will?"

The guards still don't say anything. But they stop, look at each other. The diodes of the communication implants set under their ears blink in rapid-fire transmission.

"Tell Talbot this operation is counterproductive," Carlos says, ignoring Dana's startled look. "I know what information he wants; I can give it to him. But only if my intellect's intact."

There is a pause; then Talbot's voice sounds from a speaker overhead, echoing in the cell's close confines. _"Precisely what information are you offering?"_

Carlos looks up at the ceiling. "The method of the memory loss," he says. "How they removed all knowledge of Night Vale from my mind."

There is a pause, long enough that Carlos has to let go of the breath he's holding, before the interrogator finally responds. _"Forgo the sedative and bring him to my office. Immediately."_


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't be the only one stressing about the upcoming episode! So I took my mind off it with this - which at this point is 100% AU; if anything happens to match up with the last year of canon, it's most probably sheer coincidence.
> 
> I must apologize again for the posting delay. The good news is, the reason for it was because with the story entering its end game, I needed to hammer down certain details before continuing. So now I've got most of the rest of the chapters drafted, and while they still need work, I should be able to post at a more regular rate from here on out.
> 
> As always, thanks so much for your great patience and continued interest - I'm so happy you've kept with this fic so far, and I hope it continues to entertain all the way to the end!

_*click* "Voice message deleted."_

If Carlos thinks back, it's his first real memory of Desert Bluffs—the first thing he can clearly remember at all, following those two years that are simply gone. Strex had clouded that memory, covered it up with their own delusions. Since he broke their conditioning, it's come back to him, vivid with his panic at the time, the shock of finding himself in an unknown and terrifying place.

A whirring click, and that curt, electronic voice, murmuring: _"Voice message deleted. No more messages."_

He was holding a cellphone, pressed to his ear, the source of the voice. Lowering the phone, he found it wasn't his, but some new model he didn't recognize. Where had it come from?

For that matter, where was he? His eyes were adjusting slowly, as if he'd just come inside from a sunny day. The dim light overhead revealed claustrophobically close walls lined with shelves, dusty utilitarian metal stacked with what appeared to be old audio media.

The floor under his feet was gritty and yet tacky, and under the mustiness of cobwebs there was a stronger odor, coppery and sour—blood?

The wave of dizziness that hit him was more confusion than weakness. Dropping the phone, Carlos grabbed for the nearest shelf to steady himself. His trembling hands knocked over the cassette cases, plastic crashing onto the sticky linoleum. 

The clatter provoked shouts behind him, muffled through the walls. He started to turn toward the noise, only to jump at a loud bang, as a door behind him was kicked open. Brighter light poured inside, along with people in gas masks and unfamiliar blue uniforms. They shoved into the narrow room, surrounding him with a barricade of guns and tasers and other weapons Carlos couldn't at the time identify.

His disorientation was more frightening than their hostility. Raising his hands, he stammered to the threatening strangers, "Who—who are you? Where am I? What's going on?"

 

* * *

 

Now, five months later, Carlos is all too used to StrexCorp security's blue uniforms. The current pair of guards march him to Dr. Talbot's office. The interrogator is waiting for him, seated behind his desk with his hands folded over his notepad.

Johnny Peterson is there, too, standing beside Talbot's chair, hands casually in his slacks pockets. Carlos isn't surprised to see the executive, though he does wonder at how quickly he showed up. Most probably Peterson had been here already, to observe Talbot's operation.

The guards sit Carlos down in the chair, but when they go to cuff him, Peterson waves them off. "Don't bother. You can go; we'll be speaking in private."

"Thank you," Carlos says, pitching his voice carefully polite, if not friendly. Everything now depends on convincing them, and given his previous performances, they have little reason to believe him. "For talking to me."

"Thank _you_ ," Peterson says affably. He's wearing a tie again, bright yellow against his crisply pressed blue shirt, and his smile is point-perfect. "The doc here and I can't wait to hear what you have to say."

Carlos rubs his wrists as he glances around the office. The orange pip is in his pocket, he didn't dare leave it behind in the cell; but if Dana followed him here, she's not in sight now. Maybe she has business in the otherworld, or with Tamika and the others in Night Vale. He can only hope it will occupy her for the length of this discussion. "First, I want to see him," he says. "Cecil."

Talbot looks to Peterson, who nods once. The interrogator takes out his clunky old tablet, painstakingly brings up the surveillance video feed and passes the tablet to Carlos.

Cecil is still strapped to the gurney, flanked by guards, gagged and blindfolded. The IV in his arm continues to ensure his unconsciousness. Carlos exhales, less a sigh than forcing the air from his lungs. "I want to talk to him. In person."

"Maybe we can arrange a visit later today," Peterson says. "For now, how about you talk to us?"

It would be difficult for Carlos to return the executive's smile, knowing that only an hour ago Peterson had been planning to observe the dissection of his brain. Carlos doesn't try, keeping his eyes lowered to the tablet, focused on Cecil's motionless, vulnerable form. "Very well," he says. "I'll begin with what you already know, so you can verify its accuracy. 

"A couple of years ago, I applied to Strex, only to reject the company's employment offer. Instead I took a private grant as an independent scientist in Night Vale, the nearby community of which Strex has been attempting a buyout and takeover for some time now. 

"Four and a half months ago, StrexCorp security captured me in a storage room in the Desert Bluffs Community Radio station. I was reported killed in the incident—I'm assuming that was deliberate misinformation, to ensure no rescue was attempted." He looks up, but neither Peterson's nor Talbot's faces give away anything. Carlos continues, "In actuality, Strex took me into custody, assuming I was a member of Night Vale's resistance.

"When found, I was severely disoriented, confused. I couldn't say where I was, why I was there, or where I'd come from. Strex interrogators examined me intensively, and eventually concluded that I was telling the truth—I didn't know anything about Night Vale or whatever I'd studied there. In fact, I had no memories at all, for nearly two years of my life. In that, my condition was similar to Strex's existing retraining procedures, but with the significant difference that I had no accompanying brain damage; excepting the amnesia, my faculties were intact.

"You, VP Peterson and Dr. Talbot, realized that such a technique would be an immense benefit for StrexCorp recruitment and human resources. So rather than disposing of me, or retraining me completely, you convinced your superiors to give me the standard company induction, with some extra conditioning to paper over the holes in my memory. Then you put me to work like any employee, monitoring me closely to see how the new retraining held up, while Dr. Talbot continued to study the circumstances and situation of my capture, attempting to reconstruct how my memories were erased.

"Only you haven't had any luck figuring it out. I'm assuming that whatever device you found on me, you haven't been able to get it to work. And not understanding the particulars, it was difficult to preserve my amnesiac state, not knowing what interference might reinforce the block or else stimulate my memories. Meanwhile, your bosses grew impatient, considering me a liability they'd prefer to just get rid of. Making me Employee of the Month," and he touches the badge on his neck, "bought you extra time; but now that time's up, and you still have nothing to show for it."

Carlos crosses his arms, leans back in his chair. "Is that an accurate summation?"

Talbot says nothing, though his small eyes are fixed on Carlos. Peterson hasn't taken his hands out of his pockets, but he's standing very still, and his smile has a fixed, forced quality. "Close enough," he says at last. 

"You couldn't have learned what you needed by dissecting my brain," Carlos tells them.  
"I'm a scientist, not a psychologist, but as I understand it, the effect is more cognitive than neurological. Even if you'd isolated specific cerebral alterations, simply reproducing them wouldn't have the same effect on another individual. Episodic memory is highly contextual; you might manage to cause some form of amnesia, but not targeted."

"And you claim that you can," Talbot says, his eyes glittering wide and fascinated in the pits of his fleshy face. "That you have a technique to block specific memories, without any associate intellectual damage."

Carlos shakes his head. "Not blocked; destroyed. The neural pathways are realigned—associate memories may linger; but the original encoded information is erased."

Talbot nods. "That's supported by our observations. And after that realignment, the mind, endeavoring to fill the gaps left by the lost information, is susceptible to suggestion and guided confabulation..."

"Yeah, yeah, the science is amazing, I'm sure," Peterson says, "but the question is, can you actually do it? You wouldn't just be wasting our time now, would you, Carlos, trying to prolong the inevitable..."

"I know how to do it," Carlos says. "And I can show you—provided I have the equipment. I presume when I was captured, any devices in my possession were confiscated?"

"As it happens, they were," Peterson says. He takes out his tablet, hands it to Carlos.

Putting down Talbot's tablet with its video of Cecil, Carlos accepts the executive's computer. The screen shows eight photographs of pocket-sized devices, arranged by rulers, boxed, measured, and catalogued. They include a pair of pens, a cellphone, a Geiger counter, and the radio confiscated from his quarters.

The other items are more difficult to identify. One, at first glance, could be mistaken for a tangle of wires and transistors shoved in a plastic case to get them out of the way; but closer examination shows it to be deliberately if haphazardly assembled. Even in the small photograph, Carlos recognizes his own handiwork. It's the kind of device he'd throw together late at night, when he absolutely needs a result right away, and the proper model he intends to construct later never ends up getting made, since the makeshift version does the job well enough, and is totally safe as long as you wear rubber gloves and remember never to touch the primary lead to the unlabeled grounding wire...

"This one," Carlos says, tapping the photograph. "This is the device."

Peterson's eyebrows go up; he exchanges a glance with Talbot. The interrogator's face is unreadable, but his idly tapping fingers have stilled on the desk. "That was one of the items found with you," he confirms.

"And your researchers didn't know what to make of it," Carlos says. "They probably assumed it was a type of white-noise generator?"

"That was one hypothesis, yes," Talbot says. "But even at substantially increased volume it had only negligible effects on any subjects it was tested on."

"It needs careful calibration," Carlos says. "But when correctly operated, it generates violet noise—a very particular profile of violet noise, with a unique effect on human cognitive function."

"A simple acoustic wave?" Talbot says.

"Are you implying that this thing makes, what, a sound that can erase memories?" Peterson shakes his head. "I know you're desperate, Carlos, with tomorrow being the last day of the month; but I'd expected you to come up with at least a halfway plausible lie."

"I'm not lying," Carlos says. "And it's rather more than a mere sound, though that's the fundamental physical mechanism." He meets Talbot's eyes, direct and honest. The interrogator, for all his skeptical tone, is still listening intently. "Despite all of your technological advances, StrexCorp still uses a radio broadcast to reach its employees, here in Desert Bluffs. Kevin is one of Strex's most valued employees. You know how powerful an audio signal can be. How influential, especially here, in these communities, in this local reality."

"There was speculation, after our observations of the Voice phenomenon," Talbot murmurs, "but the lack of immediate and obvious practical applications has hindered research..."

"All right." Peterson plants both hands on Talbot's desk, leans over it. Behind his smile his white teeth are gritted. "Let's say you're on the level, and this noise of yours actually can erase memories. So...how do you know this? Clearly this thing doesn't work as well as you're claiming, if you can remember _it_ —or was that a trick? Have you been faking your memory loss all this time?"

Carlos shakes his head. "No trick, not on my part. I still don't remember anything about Night Vale. But all my studies in the years before I went there give me the ideal background to understand the scientific properties behind this," and he taps the image of the device. "As I was able to do with the bloodstones, and the oranges, presented with the basic principles, I can extrapolate further. I suspect I retain subconscious knowledge as well; some of the scientific insights I gained in Night Vale I may remember, without being aware of their origins."

"You've got knowledge that you don't know how you know?" Peterson asks.

"What's the speed of light? Or the gravitational constant of the Earth? Do you remember where you learned every fact you know?"

"This technique may not affect semantic memory," Talbot says. "Intriguing; that will take further research. In the meantime, however, the original query remains. Whatever you abstractly understand about the function of this device, it doesn't explain how you remembered its existence."

Carlos licks his lips. "I didn't remember it," he says. "I was told about it."

"Who told you?" Peterson demands. "Another employee? How'd they know about it?"

"No one from Strex," Carlos says. "From Night Vale." The attention of both executive and doctor rivets on him, as he explains, "I've been in limited contact with a few Night Vale citizens for some time now. You found the radio I was hiding. And my escape attempt before, that was arranged with the assistance of Tamika Flynn. They've wanted my help to fight against Strex—wanted my help again, I should say. I was reluctant, not remembering who they were. So finally they told me what happened. How I came to be in Desert Bluffs, when I was captured.

"It seems that several months ago, the citizens opposed to Strex's takeover came up with a plan to stop the company. To execute it, they needed to disrupt StrexCorp's communication network. I was assigned the mission—asked for it, they claimed. I don't know; I don't remember any of this. Maybe I did volunteer; maybe I wanted to prove myself to them. Or else I just wanted to help. Or maybe they had a way to convince me.

"So I came to Desert Bluffs. And I brought my invention, the violet noise generator, supposedly to field-test it. It's useful for infiltration, you see; I could make anyone in Strex forget they had ever seen me. Once inside the Desert Bluffs radio station, I would sabotage its power, cut its electricity—it would only be a temporary interruption of service, but long enough. That was the plan.

"Except something went wrong. According to my contacts in Night Vale, they never figured out what happened. They believed I'd died. Now that they've learned the truth, they told me that there must have been an accident—that somehow I was inadvertently exposed to the VN device, and had my memory erased. Then Strex captured me, and you know the rest."

There's silence for a moment. Then Peterson says, "Not quite everything. For a while now—weeks at least, maybe longer—you've been working against Strex. Secretly conspiring with Night Vale's more uncooperative elements. But now you're telling us everything—why is that? What do you want? A postponement of tomorrow's quarterly report, perhaps?"

"Would that even be possible?" Carlos says. "I thought an Employee of the Month's final duty is unavoidable."

"Unavoidable, yes," Talbot says. "But perhaps not unsurvivable..."

"Is that what you're asking for?" Peterson asks. The sarcasm in his voice twists his smile to cruel mocking. "That's all it takes? You'll do anything for us, sell out all those ideals you've been clinging to, in exchange for your life. ...Your life, and, let me guess, a lab and equipment, and time to fix your little memory device—and plan an escape, or whatever else you're plotting, along with your allies and friends back in Night Vale."

Carlos shakes his head. "That's not my aim. Of course I want to live through tomorrow. But I won't need more time than that; I should be able to get the VN generator working today. And if you want to know what the Night Vale resistance is plotting, I can tell you that, too. They're preparing an uprising, the day after tomorrow."

Talbot looks momentarily startled. "Still? Even after we've captured their Voice—" and then he claps his mouth shut, as Peterson's head swings toward him.

After a moment the executive turns back to Carlos. He's no longer even faking a smile, mouth pressed into a flat line; he glares at Carlos like an engineer just realizing he misplaced a decimal point. "Awfully helpful, for you to mention this to us now."

"Don't mistake me," Carlos says. "I have no interest in helping Strex. You lied to and manipulated me for months. I don't care about your company's goals or your agenda; I want nothing to do with them. And while I obviously would prefer to survive what you and your terrible god will do to me tomorrow, that's not why I'm telling you this, either."

Peterson's lips writhe and curl, as if out of practice pulling down into a frown. "So why are you?"

"Because," and Carlos looks down across the desk, at Talbot's tablet. The screen has gone dark, but in his mind's eyes the video of Cecil on the gurney lingers, a psychic afterimage. "Strex aren't the only ones who lied to me. Who told me there had been an accident—a terrible, unfortunate accident...except I remember more than they know. I don't remember Night Vale, but I remember the VN device. I understand how it operates.

"It would take me hours to fully explain its function, but the basic principle is that this precise pattern of violet noise briefly excites certain mental processes. At the height of the excitation, the subject can be stimulated into targeted cognition—provoked to think about a specific concept, by means of an additional auditory signal. If the stimulation is sufficiently powerful, the resultant cognitive activity will scramble the neural network, forcing the brain to make alternative connections. In effect, the original synaptic connections are cleared—the neurons themselves aren't damaged, but reset, losing their associations. Like deleting corrupt data off a computer harddrive.

"The more significant the target memory, the stronger the stimulus must be, to ensure it's entirely deleted. The process is most effective when there is a substantial cognitive correlation between the memory being erased and the stimulation. For instance, to make a subject forget the existence of a person, the ideal stimulus would be for that specific person to name themselves. Just hearing the name, from someone unrelated, wouldn't provoke intense enough memories to trigger the effect; at best they'd forget a few details.

"For me to forget Night Vale—completely and entirely, so that I didn't even recognize its name—no random accident could have erased it. No one in Desert Bluffs could have done it; it would have had to be a significant stimulus. A significant voice." Carlos picks up Peterson's tablet, slides his fingers across it to awaken the display with the grid of photographs. He taps the image next to the VN generator. "This is my cellphone, isn't it. It was in my hand when the Strex guards captured me, I remember that. It's the first thing I do remember.

"When I failed my mission, I must have been desperate enough to call for help. I called someone I knew in Night Vale, hoping to be saved...but instead they saved themselves. My supposed allies, my so-called friends—they erased my knowledge, to ensure that I couldn't betray anything I knew to Strex. And it was Cecil's voice which stole my memories. Which took everything from me.

"I don't know why he did it. Maybe the others convinced him it was necessary. Or else he told himself he was doing it for me, to spare me the pain of Night Vale's rejection. Cecil is the type of man who likes to pretend to be kind. It's why I want to talk to him, to ask him why, if he'll tell me that much.

"Whatever he has to say, though, in the end, it won't change what he did to me. I spent almost two years in Night Vale, learning, living, falling in love. And in turn, Night Vale got what they needed from me and threw me away. They took my science and abandoned me to you, and only sought me out again when my research here became a threat to them. When they realized I was ignorant of what they'd done, they thought I could still be of use to them. But I've had enough of being used.

"So that's why I'm telling you this." Carlos sets down the tablet, raises his head to face Peterson. He lets all the confusion and rage and bitterness of the last months show in his eyes, lets it sound in his voice. "It's not that I want Strex to succeed, or even to bargain for my life. But if I give you the memory erasure technique, I know that the first subjects you'll use it on will be the citizens of Night Vale, the ones who did this to me. That's what I want. I want them to know what it's like, what they did to me; I want them to experience this fear, this desolation. I want them to know what it is to lose—to lose your very self, and everything that matters."

Peterson is silent, studying Carlos's face. Then, slowly, he smiles. "I think we can manage that," he says. "What will you need, to get this device working again?"

"From the picture, it looks intact," Carlos says. "But I'll need to examine it personally, and some basic equipment to calibrate it. A standard volume indicator, an audio impedance meter, a few tools and such."

"That all?"

Carlos hesitates. "There is one more limiting factor."

"Of course there is," Peterson says. "What?"

"As I mentioned, this technique requires an existing mental association between the stimulus and the memory being targeted. If you're intending to erase the memory of Night Vale from the citizens of that town, then you'll need a stimulus strongly associated with the place. No one from Desert Bluffs could do it; even my voice probably wouldn't work, since I was an outsider, not from the town."

"No problem," Peterson says. "Seeing as we've got the Voice of Night Vale himself. His voice should work on everyone else as well as it did on you, right?"

"Theoretically, yes," Carlos confirms, "but Cecil will never cooperate with Strex."

"Only if he remembers not to," Talbot says. "If this technique proves successful, then he can be induced to forget his misapprehensions about Strex."

Peterson nods. "And after that, you can convince him to do what he needs to, for Night Vale's sake."

Carlos's spine is a rigid line, his shoulders tensed and hunched. "He'd only listen to me if I actually meant anything to him, if he hadn't just been using me to help his town. I don't know what our relationship truly was; I don't remember it."

Peterson shrugs. "I've heard some of the pirate broadcasts he's made; I'll take those odds. As long as you play ball."

"I'll cooperate," Carlos says. "For this, I'll help you however I can. As long as I'm alive to."

"There may be something we can do about that," Peterson says. "Give you a chance with the quarterly report—if you actually do turn out to be an asset, that is. I'll go requisition that device and the equipment for you can get it working. Dr. Talbot, see to Carlos here, make him comfortable. Don't let him go anywhere unsupervised, obviously, but show him that he's made the right call, cooperating with us like this."

The interrogator nods. "I recommend a meal. The nanomachinery will have eliminated your appetite, but nutrition will fortify your system for tomorrow's ordeal."

Carlos isn't hungry, but nods agreement anyway. He rubs a hand over his face, the rough stubble on his chin, remarks, "A chance to shower and shave would be nice, too."

"There are security facilities on the floor below," Talbot says, and summons the guards to escort Carlos to a small locker room and showers. While it's nowhere near as lavish as the accommodations in Peterson's office, the fixtures are efficient and spotless, every chrome surface polished to a distorted mirror.

The handle is locked when Carlos tries it, and the guards are certainly waiting right outside it if he knocks; but it offers the illusion of privacy, as long as he ignores the mirrors, and the black lenses gleaming in the corners of the ceilings.

He turns on the shower, hot enough for steam to billow into the room and fog over the mirror and those glittering lenses, but doesn't undress. Instead he stands over the sink, shuts his eyes and braces himself against the nausea. It's been too long since he's eaten for the bile rising in his throat to be a prelude to anything more, but the acid burns.

Behind him, he hears a whisper barely audible over the rush of water, "Carlos?"

Carlos opens his eyes. "Dana," he says, and turns around.

The young woman stands before the bank of lockers, the bright red of her t-shirt failing to reflect in any of the chrome. She stares at him with her arms tightly crossed over her chest, as if she's freezing or ill. 

"I suppose I don't need to ask how much you overheard," Carlos says.

Dana shakes her head mutely. Carlos sighs. "I was hoping you wouldn't hear any of it."

"Carlos..." Dana folds her arms more closely to her body, as if meeting his eyes chills her. "You should—you have to talk to Cecil. Ask him. That can't be what happened. Whatever you remember—whatever you think you know, about that device, or anything else—Cecil wouldn't do that to you. He never would."

"No," Carlos agrees, "he wouldn't. He didn't. I don't need to remember what really happened, to be sure of that."

Dana rocks back on her heels, unfolding her arms. "But you told them...so it was all a lie?"

"Not all of it. Not most of it, even," Carlos says. He keeps his voice low. Even if Dana is having her usual effect on surveillance equipment, with the guards outside the door, he can't risk being overheard. There won't be a second chance, not for him, and maybe not for Night Vale. "The science was accurate, but I left out a few details about the VN generator. And I didn't come to the Desert Bluffs station to disrupt communications—Dana, I want to tell you everything, everything Cecil told me; but there's no time. Right now I need you to listen to me carefully. Cecil and I have a plan, but there's something we need you to do. For you to tell Tamika and your friends to do—and it's big, but it's the best chance we've got."

"Right," Dana says, nodding. "What do you need?"

He was expecting it, counting on it; and yet the shock is almost physical, like a blow to the chest. Carlos slumps against the sink, legs weak. "...You actually believe me? Even after what I've told Strex?"

"Sure!" Dana looks surprised to be asked.

"But I could be lying to you now—maybe I really am betraying you."

"Maybe," Dana says, unperturbed. "I hope not, though."

"I told them about the uprising Night Vale is planning."

"Yes, I heard that." Dana frowns slightly. "I figured you must have had a good reason to do that. Scientifically."

"That's not how science..." Carlos drags a shaky hand down his face. "Cecil heard from your unreal 'friends' that Strex knew about the plan already. They're prepared for it."

Dana nods. "Then I'll tell Tamika, and we'll make a new plan. What else do you need?"

"That's it? How can you just trust me, after everything I told them?"

"And everything you didn't tell them," Dana says. "You didn't say anything about me. And you said you'd been in touch with the people in Night Vale, but you didn't tell them it was Cecil you were talking to in your dreams. Though that's not how I can I trust you."

"How, then?"

"How can you trust Cecil?" Dana says. "You're my friend, and so is Cecil. If you can't trust your friends, then you don't really have any. Trust is going to save Night Vale—it's the one thing we have that Strex can't destroy or buy or steal from us. So what do you and Cecil need us to do?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically [violet noise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise) is a thing; however all findings re: its effect on human memory are classified under the Greater DB Area Corporate Information Trust. (Neurobiologists and in fact anyone with any understanding of neuropsychology are advised not to think about the science too closely, or else risk their head exploding.)


	28. Chapter 28

_Forgetting what you have done does not mean you did nothing, no more than closing your eyes will extinguish the sun._

_If sound is the perception of acoustic waves, then a tree which falls in an uninhabited forest makes no sound. But even without ears to hear it, the air itself still vibrates with every branch broken, ripples spreading through the atmosphere, as irrevocable as the flutter of a butterfly's wings. The tree's fall may not be heard by any living being, but its passing is recorded in the breeze and wind, in the stirring of a hurricane that can flatten the rest of the forest._

_Carlos does not remember. But he acted, and the repercussions of those actions continue to resonate around him, a record of the past no less accurate for being forgotten..._

It started several months after Strex's initial incursion into Night Vale. One night, Carlos came home late from the lab and realized, when Cecil asked, that he had no idea what he had been doing. He could recall the morning and afternoon's experiments, but past sunset was a blank.

The first time, he chalked it up to a Glow Cloud flyby. But it happened again the next day. The third night, he was prepared.

Cecil's show had long ended by the time Carlos got back to their place. He charged in shouting, "Cecil! I've got something—maybe—if what I _think_ I've been working on is what I've actually been—oh, sorry, did I wake you?"

"No, I was just, um, listening for gremlins in the couch cushions. " Cecil made a poor attempt to stifle a yawn, stretching as he sat up. "Welcome home. So what were you working on?"

Carlos flipped through the spiral-bound notebook he had clutched all the way home. Its pages were marked with thin-lined black text—the writing of an illegal pen, and it was testament to how urgent Carlos must sound, that Cecil didn't even comment. "I've been working with Ev... Em... Ern...?" Carlos squinted at the page, then shook his head, "—well, I can't read the name, but I believe you know him. He wears a tan jacket," that had been underlined twice and circled. "He's come to my lab several times now, apparently. You see, recently I was studying the Glow Cloud—"

"— _All hail_ ," Cecil chorused with him.

"—Yes, that, exactly!" Carlos nodded enthusiastically. "The effects of the Glow Cloud's presence, and related phenomena. This man somehow heard about my studies, and volunteered to contribute. I've been," he scanned his notes, nodded again, "yes, right, I've been attempting to record his voice. Or rather, find a way to render a recording of his voice audible such that it will transition from working to long-term memory. So far my experiments have been less than successful, but while running them we discovered a fascinating secondary effect. The research is preliminary, but if this hypothesis can be verified...for that, we need your help."

"My help?" Cecil asked. "Do you want me to report something on my show?"

Carlos shook his head. "Not this time. We need your voice. And..." He hesitated. There were lines a scientist should not cross, the ethical framework that must guide and structure all scientific inquiry, lest the knowledge gathered be corrupted, tainted by bias.

There were lines. But desperate times required desperate methods. And there's nowhere to stare but into the abyss, when you're already falling down it. "I need you to get in touch with Tamika Flynn."

"Tamika?" Cecil looked alarmed. "How can she help your science?" Though Carlos listened diligently to Cecil's reports, they hadn't talked much personally about Tamika's activities. Or StrexCorp's. Carlos knew that was only partly because certain topics weren't worth the risk of being overheard. More importantly, Cecil didn't want him involved in the town's troubles. 

But Night Vale was Carlos's home, too. And he would be a poor scientist, if he couldn't observe what was going on right in front of him. What was happening to his community—what would happen, if Strex weren't stopped. "Because," Carlos said, "Tamika has taken hostage some Strex employees. And scientific experiments require subjects..."

 

* * *

 

It took weeks to confirm and reproduce the initial findings. The usual challenges of scientific rigor were compounded by Carlos's tan-jacketed partner in the endeavor; no one assisting with the experiments could clearly recall them for very long afterwards, or even remember they'd assisted at all.

Fortunately, being Night Vale residents, no one was overly perturbed by this. In fact, when Carlos suggested keeping personal notes as he did, most of them outright refused, and not only because of the writing implement prohibition. Ignorance was not only bliss but protection, as every Night Vale citizen had been aware long before Strex came.

Even Cecil, whenever Carlos started to discuss the project, would shake his head and cover his ears. "I don't need to know, Carlos—as long as it's going well, that's good enough for me!"

"But you're an integral part of this, Cecil. We're using your voice; don't you want to know what's being done with it?"

"Not really; it's enough to know that you're the one using it," Cecil said. "Besides, I've got enough to consider when I'm doing my show these days, with all of Strex's new restrictions and regulations. I don't need to know one more thing that I absolutely can't talk about."

"That's reasonable," Carlos admitted. "But doesn't it bother you, to not know what you've been doing? Not just the main project, but everything else." He looked down at his notebook, on its last pages; it was the fourth he'd filled since embarking on these experiments. They held more than project notes. Just last night he'd recorded a breakthrough about a vexing mathematical quandary, and speculation about the locally specific lunar phases. "To lose all those thoughts, all that time..."

"It's not lost," Cecil said. "If it were just my time, I might miss it; but this is for Night Vale. The only thing I regret is not remembering the time we're spending together. To have all those shared moments disappear, over and forgotten..."

"...Not entirely," Carlos said, face warming. Opening his notebook, he showed Cecil a few other items jotted in the margins—the number of times he had said Cecil's name, the locations Cecil had touched him, deliberate and accidental.

Cecil, with his impeccable manners, didn't ask why Carlos was keeping such statistics, or why he had specific notation for them (sparing Carlos the awkwardness of admitting it was a holdover from their first dates, when he had been trying to mathematically calculate the optimal factors for advancing a relationship.)

He did, however, pore over the notes at length, before finally remarking, "Scientists keep records of experiments to repeat them, right? To make sure they get the same results."

"One reason, yes," Carlos said. "Confirmation is important, to verify all variables are accounted for."

"Then, after this experiment is over," Cecil suggested, running his fingers down the column of chuckles, "perhaps we could confirm some of these results?"

"Hmm." Carlos took back the notebook and paged through it. "I don't know, there's a lot of data here...we might want to start tonight, if we don't want to get too far behind."

Which, Cecil ardently agreed, was only logical.

After that, Carlos started keeping that data in a separate notebook, to share with Cecil afterwards. And if some of those later notes were recorded in Cecil's spidery hand, he could honestly tell the secret police that as far as he remembered, he had never held an illicit pen.

 

* * *

 

By the time the project was completed, Strex owned just about every business in town. Night Vale's citizens were still resisting, if subtly. Few openly supported Tamika Flynn's efforts; but many people had yet to turn in their outlawed bloodstones, and they shut off their radios as soon as Cecil's show ended, before the paid broadcasts of Strex promotions and efficiency chants aired.

Still, that resistance was crumbling, gradually but steadily, day by day. Carlos could track its decay in the slump of Cecil's shoulders and the shadows in his eyes, the discouragement and the ever-growing despair.

So it was with excitement and no small relief, when Carlos could finally tell his boyfriend, "We're almost ready. I'll be going to Desert Bluffs by the end of the week."

"Desert Bluffs?" Cecil demanded. "Why would you go to that forsaken place?"

"Because of the plan to save Night Vale—which you don't remember," Carlos belatedly recalled. "And maybe that's safer for you; if Strex finds out..."

"If you're going into the heart of Strex, then I need to know," Cecil said. "However unsafe it is."

So Carlos showed him. He had everything with him; for some time now he hadn't dared bring the equipment to the main lab, not since Strex had bought the building. Most of the work he'd been doing in his private lab in their guest bedroom. When he had trouble sleeping he would tinker through the night. Lately he had been spending more nights in the lab than in bed, especially since Cecil wasn't there anyway, more often than not, these days.

"This is what you've been working on?" Cecil asked, gingerly poking at the VN generator's exposed wires.

Carlos shook his head. "The generator merely increases the efficacy; that range of violet noise induces theta brainwaves, encourages the right state of mind. This is the key," and he proudly displayed the fruits of their labor.

Cecil eyed the small device in confusion. "That looks like my old dictaphone."

"It is," Carlos said. "You donated it to the cause a few weeks ago. I've installed a new miniaturized speaker and restored the heads, but most of the mechanism is the same."

"And that's going to save Night Vale?"

"It will." Carlos opened the recorder and popped out the microcassette tape inside. "An analog recording proved necessary; no existing compression algorithm for digital storage has the depth to preserve every gradation of the acoustic waves, and portable petabyte storage is as yet impractical. As it is, the tape can't be copied, and even the magnetic interference from playing disrupts the signal. We won't be able to use it more than once."

"Use it to do what, though?"

Carlos was three paragraphs into the explanation before he noticed the glaze over Cecil's eyes. "—Well, the science is really complicated. But you know how music—just music, even without any words or story—can bring tears to yours eyes, or make your heart beat faster? The sound on this tape makes you forget, given the appropriate stimulus. I'm going to take it to the Desert Bluffs radio station, and broadcast it over the air, so that everyone in Strex hears it—so that everyone in Strex forgets."

"What will you make them forget?" Cecil asked. "Tamika Flynn, the resistance movement? Or which businesses they own here?"

"All of that, and more," Carlos said. "They're going to forget Night Vale. Every StrexCorp employee will forget that this town exists, along with any plans they have for it. And there won't be anything to remind them. They've already done most of that work for us; Strex has been leaving this town off of maps and out of broadcasts, calling this the Greater Desert Bluffs area. My science team has written a computer virus to remove any last references; I'll upload it to Strex's database when I make the broadcast.

"After that, StrexCorp will be gone from Night Vale, never to return. This is a really weird place, it's very hard to find, normally. I don't even know how I got here myself! So however Strex located us the first time, the odds are against them doing it again, when they won't even to be looking. And if they ever do figure out a way back, next time we'll be ready for them."

Cecil turned the cassette around in his hands. It was such a small, innocuous thing; Carlos didn't blame his uncertain look. "You're sure this will work?"

"It's not guaranteed," Carlos admitted. "Experiments can only give probabilities; nothing is certain. We've gotten successful results with the StrexCorp employees we've tested it on, but that's a small sample. And the plan depends on a substantial percentage of StrexCorp being affected. But everyone in Desert Bluffs listens to the radio there, just as they do here. If I can broadcast directly from their signal tower, there's a significant chance that it will work."

"That's amazing, Carlos!" Cecil shook his head, not in denial but admiration. His doubt, Carlos realized, was not in the science, but in its proposed execution. "But do you have to go to the Desert Bluffs station yourself? Wouldn't it make more sense to send someone more familiar with radio broadcasting? Especially if you need my voice to be the stimulus..."

"I have your voice," Carlos said, holding up his cellphone. "I have a voice-memo from you; we've used it successfully in the latest tests. And I know the basics of radio; the science of electromagnetic transmission has always interested me." He smiled at Cecil, slightly teasing. "Besides, you're my boyfriend, that kind of makes me a broadcaster too, right?"

"No," Cecil said, not smiling back. "For something like this, you need a professional."

"But not you," Carlos said. "You can't risk this. Night Vale can't afford to lose you."

"It can't afford to lose you, either!"

Carlos shook his head. "This community functioned just fine without any scientists for most of its history. Even without me, there's still Rochelle and Dave and the others—but you won't be without me for long; I should be back by that night. And if it takes me any longer...I've lived outside of Night Vale before; it will be easier for me, than for someone who's been here all their life. I've done the calculations, Cecil; scientifically speaking, I'm the best choice for this mission."

"Radio-professionally speaking, you're not my choice," Cecil said; but when Carlos kissed him he kissed back.

 

* * *

 

The night before Carlos left Night Vale, he brought the eight notebooks he'd filled, as well as the unsuccessful tape recordings and the other equipment, to the main lab. Setting aside the notebook with his and Cecil's more personal notes, he piled the rest into the lab's chamber furnace and turned it to maximum heat and pressure.

He waited until the paper and plastic had burned down to their component elements, impossible to reconstitute, then brushed the fine gray ash into a paper bag. This he drove out to the scrublands to dump, scattering a smoky trail of dust over the barren landscape.

Then he went to the Arby's parking lot to find Cecil.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Cecil dropped Carlos off at the sand wastes. Before getting out of the car, he kissed Cecil goodbye, like any other every morning. Though there was a moment, with Cecil's hand resting heavy on the back of his neck, that Carlos thought he wasn't going to let go.

Then Cecil broke the kiss, pulled back. "Good luck," he said, "With your science." His hands around the steering wheel were white-knuckled. "I love you."

"I love you, too," Carlos said. "I'll see you soon," and he got out of the car.

Tamika was waiting, armed and frowning. The sun had finally come up, but was sulking close to the horizon, stretching long shadows from her feet. "This is the pick-up spot," she said, stamping once on the sand. "I should get out of here; the shuttle should be here pretty soon."

'Pretty soon' was about as exact time as Carlos could expect, from a child of Night Vale. He peered down the long road, the asphalt shimmering with heat mirages. There was no sign yet of the yellow bus, but Tamika had had her militia watching this route for days. Strex occasionally dispatched researchers into the sand wastes where the orange grove once grew, and picked them up again a few days later to return them to Desert Bluffs.

After taking down helicopters, abducting a single field researcher had been child's play. Well-trained, incredibly dangerous children.

The sun beat down, mercilessly hot. His wrist itched; Carlos rubbed it, feeling the bump under the skin. He and his team had extracted the researcher's Strex-chip implant and removed most of its circuitry, leaving enough identification codes to pass basic scans, for the few hours he needed to accomplish his mission. It had been thoroughly disinfected before the implantation, but it still felt strange, alien and unwanted. "How do I look? Will I pass?"

Tamika narrowed her eyes critically as she examined Carlos, from the pupils of his eyes, dilated by eye-drops; to the coat, not any of his usual lab wear, but spotless white and coated in slick mylar, the better to wash off Strex's more advanced and cruel experiments.

"You'll do," the girl pronounced at last. "As long as you remember to keep smiling—not like that, like _they_ do," and Carlos stretched his lips, schooling his features into the unnaturally gleeful grimace of a Strex employee. "Yeah, that's close enough." Tamika nodded, but she still looked pensive. 

She didn't ask him for the details of his mission, no more than she ever had before. Carlos didn't mistake this as a sign of trust—at least, not trust in him. It was testament to her faith in Cecil, that despite having no memory of his experiments, and though Carlos was an outsider, not a Night Vale citizen, she'd risk so much to help him, on Cecil's word.

Far down the road, at the mesa's base, they glimpsed a distant dust cloud, sand churned up by solar-powered wheels. Tamika turned to leave, then looked back. "I hope you know what you're doing, Scientist."

Carlos checked the lab coat's pockets—the pen in the breast pocket protector, the VN generator and dictaphone in the left side pocket, and the earplugs in the right. He inserted the plugs in his ears, looking down the road at the approaching dust. If all went according to plan, this would be the last shuttle Strex sent near Night Vale. "So do I."

 

* * *

 

The shuttle had a stop a block from the Desert Bluffs radio station, and not a single passenger or pedestrian glanced at Carlos either in the bus or the sidewalk. Entering the station was even easier than entering Night Vale's; it had no bloodstone doors to require a donation. One scan of his modified Strex implant and the glass doors obediently slid open.

The station's interior was air-conditioned almost to refrigerator temperatures, no doubt keep fresh the spattered walls, fluids drying in various organic shades under the glaring lights. Carlos breathed through his mouth, turned up the collar on his lab coat both for warmth and to block the odor as he strode through the lobby. 

Though the lights were brighter and the decor markedly different, the station's layout was similar to NVCR's, which Carlos had visited often enough to memorize. He headed toward the stairwell up to the roof, keeping his pace steady, not rushing but properly efficient, a busy employee going about his company-endorsed business. The other employees, salespeople in orange suits and t-shirted interns, all with gaping smiles below their empty eyes, ignored him.

He was only a corridor from his goal when he heard the voice behind him, slightly muffled through the earplugs, "My, my, look at that hair! So thick and black, and that distinguished touch of gray. One could almost say it's...perfect."

Carlos kept smiling, kept walking, his head down, turned away, as if he hadn't heard, hadn't noticed that comment might be directed at him—

"Excuse me, but I have to insist that you stop. Yes, you, the scientist," said the voice, as the footsteps behind him sped up to match his own. Carlos went for the nearest door, but before he could open it, a hand took his wrist, its grip far stronger than should be possible for human fingers. The pressure on his wrist forced him to turn, to raise his eyes to the man before him.

The tie was yellow, but the face above it was Cecil's face—almost Cecil's face, except where it wasn't. The smile, and the eyes fixed on Carlos—the eyes that weren't eyes at all, and even after almost two years in Night Vale, it was all Carlos could do not to scream—

He swallowed back his terror, made sure his lips were pulled up, still smiling. "Can I help you, sir?"

"Yes," Kevin said, and his mouth widened, impossibly. "I think you can. Tell me, what brings you to our little radio station, Carlos?"

"I—I don't know who you mean," Carlos said. "My name is Dominick—"

"Maybe that's the name on your S-chip," Kevin said, "but I don't think it's right. That's why I don't like computers; they're such big liars. They'll say anything, if the right people tell them to. I don't like listening to computers; I listen to people instead. Why, if you hear someone talk enough about the man they love—talking on and on and on, as if it's their _job_ , as if one's personal life could be anywhere near as important as one's professional—eventually it's like you know that man yourself, even if you've never met him."

Kevin's fingers dug into his wrist, filed nails biting in until blood welled up. Carlos gasped in pain, tried to jerk away, but it was like fighting against a steel trap. And Kevin kept staring directly into his eyes, his hideous leer not wavering. "I know you're a busy man, Carlos," the host nattered on. "There's so much to do in Night Vale; everyone there has fallen _terribly_ behind on their work. So I'm honored you made the time to visit us. Before you ask, I'm happy to do an interview with you—though not as happy as everyone in Night Vale will be, to hear your caramel voice over the airwaves again! I bet Cecil especially will be happy to know you made it here safely; he may even come in for an interview himself, if we make you ask nicely—"

Carlos didn't give him a chance to continue. With his free hand he reached into his pocket, found the VN generator and pressed play.

Through the specially designed earplugs, he could only hear the muffled hum of the violet noise, not the tape; but the effect on Kevin was instantaneous. The host stilled, not abruptly freezing, but smoothly settling into a motionless pause, smiling at nothing, head cocked as he listened.

Carlos stood completely still as well so as not to disrupt the light trance, hoping no one else would come along. He counted under his breath, timing for the peak efficacy, then told Kevin, "Forget you saw me now. Forget I was ever here in Desert Bluffs."

"You...?" Kevin's face twitched, grinning mouth working as if trying to make some other expression. His hand around Carlos's wrist loosened, and Carlos yanked free. A couple drops of blood from his wrist spattered on the floor, but the slightly fresher red was hardly noticeable amid the rest.

Stopping the tape, he shoved the VN generator and dictaphone back in his pocket, lowered his head and shouldered past Kevin with a muttered, "Excuse me."

"Excuse me," the host echoed vaguely. "What was I...?"

Carlos didn't look back, just ducked around the corner and kept walking, tugging his sleeve down over his bleeding forearm. He didn't hear any footsteps following him, but he didn't stop or turn until the end of the corridor. Then he doubled back to the door leading to the roof stairwell.

It was protected by an electronic lock. Carlos waited for two chatting interns to pass him, then pulled up his sleeve and swiped his bloody wrist across the pad.

The light stayed red; the door stayed locked. Carlos tried again, then looked at his wrist. The ragged gashes from Kevin's fingernails weren't deep enough to be dangerous, only breaking the skin...

Just deep enough to have ripped out the subdermal implant.

Carlos cursed in Modified Sumerian, turned and headed back down the hall. Kevin hadn't had a chance to grab the implant; it must have fallen to the floor. If it were still intact, even removed, he should be able to hack it—

Without warning, the station's bright lights switched to a sullen orange, turning the gory walls to a sepia-toned camouflage print. A siren started to sound, low and throbbing.

Every employee in the hall jerked to a halt, looking up at the ceiling as a voice came over the loudspeaker, over the siren, _"We have an unregistered visitor in the station. All employees, report to your supervisor to validate your S-chip—"_

Carlos didn't listen further.Around the corner he heard the thud of heavy boots. Not waiting to see whether it was Strex security or worse, Carlos put his head down and joined the crowd of employees hurrying in the opposite direction, as fast as he dared.

 

* * *

 

Without an implant, every door in the DBCR station was locked to Carlos. Even the open doors were dangerous; passing through any monitored threshold would set off another unauthorized personnel alarm.

But the station shared its design with its sister in Night Vale, and Cecil had shown Carlos a few of its secrets. He lagged behind the crowd, waited until all the employees had passed and then hooked his fingers under the molding to slide open a false wall. Brushing through the ethereal stickiness of cobwebs, he emerged in the next hall over, already cleared of personnel.

In the Night Vale station, this was the station archives, an older section, possibly predating the building's use as a radio station. Carlos wasn't positive of that—he'd definitively dated parts of NVCR's building as centuries old, but had yet to figure out what it had been used for before the invention of radio. 

This appeared to be an older part of the Desert Bluffs station as well. There were fewer technological updates; no keypads protected the scratched and peeling doors, and the splatters caked on the walls were dull brown and flaking. Carlos still avoided touching them as he made his way down the empty, orange-lit corridor. The siren was still moaning; he pulled out the earplugs to better listen for anyone's approach.

In the Night Vale station, there was an antique fire escape leading down from the roof, mostly used by interns sneaking off to grab a quick smoke or a little terror of the void. Carlos turned down one hall, then another, and there it was, a wrought-iron ladder extending its bottom rungs down from the ceiling.

His surge of triumph was interrupted by the distinctive click and scrape of a door opening, somewhere down the next hall. Without looking back, Carlos sprinted for the ladder. He just needed to make it to the roof; once he made the broadcast, no one from Strex would remember to stop him. The ladder was right above him; Carlos jumped to grab the lowest rung and haul himself up—

With a loud crack, a searing current of electricity arced from the metal through his body. Carlos's teeth clamped down hard enough that he tasted blood, pain momentarily whiting out his vision as he fell.

 

* * *

 

He came back to himself an indeterminate moment later, on the floor beneath the ladder, bruised and shaking.

"Oh, you shouldn't have done that," said a voice, too close, and unreasonably strong arms wrapped around him, dragging him back against a solid, damp chest. 

Carlos twisted his head to make out Kevin's gory smile in the corner of his eye. "Roof access is discouraged," the radio host said, teeth snapping by Carlos's ear. "It was terribly unproductive for any employee to be able to go up there and see the sky, and see the sun, and wire a spare microphone into the antennae to make unregulated broadcasts to everyone in Desert Bluffs. They—we—couldn't have that."

Carlos tried to struggle, but could hardly move. Kevin's arms were as unyielding as steel, one locking his arms to his sides, the other pushing into his throat. It wasn't quite enough pressure to strangle, but the curtailed oxygen after the electric shock made dark spots flash before his eyes.

"The oddest thing happened to me, a little while ago," Kevin said, conversationally. "I realized I had blood on my fingers—which isn't odd at all, of course. But when I tried this blood—and yes, I know, precious fluid resources are for the company's benefit, not personal, but it was only a few drops—and such delightful drops they were, too! Not from around here, I knew that right away. But where did it come from? I asked my supervisor, and she saw fit to sound those silly alarms. Completely unnecessary, I could have told them—no one with such appealing blood could be dangerous. But then, they don't listen to me. Not unless I'm on the radio.

"If they listened to me, I could have mentioned how I found more of this blood smeared on the lock of the main roof access. It was still locked, but it occurred to me that you might try another way up—and here you are! Carlos the Scientist himself, with your delightful blood and clever mind and perfect, _perfect_ hair." He giggled, turned his head to rub his cheek against Carlos's hair. "I never thought I'd see you here in Desert Bluffs, with that rascal Cecil keeping you all to himself. Since you're here, how about an interview?"

"Can't—"

"That's too bad, are you sure?" Kevin said, his wheedling tone in grim contrast to the nails biting into Carlos's biceps. "I have so many questions. Such as what brings you to our humble little community. And why your blood was on my hand, when we've only just met now. What do you have to say to that?"

"Can't—can't breathe!" Carlos choked out.

"Oh, I see!" Kevin loosened his hold, not releasing him, but enough to free one of Carlos's arms. He grabbed at his chest, gasping for breath, as the host said, "Silly me, I forget that some of us still have that regrettable oxygen dependency. How's this? Can you talk now?"

"I can," Carlos rasped, "but I'd rather not," and snatched up the ballpoint pen tucked in his lab coat's breast pocket. Flicking off the cap, he jammed it into Kevin's arm.

The sharpened nib easily pierced the stained cotton shirt and the skin underneath. Kevin barely twitched, just glanced down at the pen stuck in his arm and shrugged it off with a casual motion. "Thank you for the gift," he said, "but we don't use such outdated technology anymo..."

The words trailed off as Kevin staggered, half his weight tilting into Carlos as his grip slackened.

Ink being illegal in Night Vale, the pen's cartridge was filled with venom extracted from Khosekh's sacs. It was a difficult operation, even with Cecil on hand to soothe his pet; and the venom lost potency in a matter of days. But this dose was fresh.

"What—what is this?" Kevin mumbled. "I feel..." He clutched at Carlos, as much for balance as to hold him. Carlos tried to twist away, sweeping his leg back to try to knock Kevin down.

Kevin held on with one arm, dragging them both to the floor. Carlos landed on top, gasping for breath and half-kneeling on Kevin's chest. An awkward position, all the more so because it might have been Cecil under him—it felt like Cecil's body, moving against him.

Except those weren't Cecil's eyes, staring up at him with weirdly innocent surprise. Kevin didn't resist, his smile all the more twisted, with one side of his mouth drooping. The arm where Carlos had stabbed the pen lay limp on the floor. With his other arm he reached up to Carlos's throat, wrapped his hand around it with an effort so careful it could be mistaken for gentleness. 

Before he could squeeze, Carlos grabbed the fallen pen off the floor, set it to Kevin's neck and bore down enough for the point to depress his skin. "Don't move," he said. "There's more than half a dose left; even if you're resistant to the paralytic effects, you won't survive a direct injection to the brain stem."

Kevin didn't lower his hand, but didn't tighten it, either, his fingers resting cool and smooth against Carlos's throat as he blinked up at him. 

"Where's security?" Carlos demanded, taking his eyes off Kevin long enough to scan the hallway. "How many guards are coming?"

"None," Kevin said. His words were a little slurred around his numbed tongue, but still articulate. "They're waiting at every station exit, while the gas is pumped in."

"Gas?" Carlos glanced up at the air vents, listening for the hiss of fans. "What gas?"

"None of the really fun ones," Kevin sighed. "No skin disintegration, or even coughing up blood. They must want to speak with you very badly. But you could give me an exclusive interview first, wouldn't that be fun? And good practice—the executives are going to have _so many_ questions for you."

Carlos pushed the pen a little harder against his throat. "You must know the station as well as my...as well any radio host." Anesthetic gas, whatever the formula, would take time to rise to effective concentrations; he had a few minutes. "How can I get out of here?"

"Leave?" The unaffected half of Kevin's mouth stretched wider still. "No one leaves Desert Bluffs; no one runs from the Smiling God. There is no way out. There is only Strex. And why would you want to leave? Even if you don't want to answer me now, in the end you'll tell Strex everything—you'll give them everything, gladly, joyfully. And you'll be so much happier when you do! I thought I was happy before, but I wasn't. Not like I am now. Everything is perfect for me now, and it will be for you, too."

"No. It won't be." Carlos took the pen from Kevin's neck. Kevin lay still, not trying to move, as Carlos turned the ballpoint's slim cylinder around in his hands. He was a scientist, and a scientist tries to consider every possibility. And this one he'd come to Desert Bluffs knowing.

Any escape attempt risked capture. And once the gas rendered him unconscious, he was unlikely to get another chance.

He was a scientist; he knew how to answer questions, not how to resist them. He had no illusions about how long he would last against Strex's interrogation techniques, lacking even the experience of regular Night Vale citizen. And once they broke him, they'd know everything he knew about Night Vale. About the resistance, about the radio. About Cecil.

It wasn't a risk he couldn't afford to take. Carlos put the pen to his own neck, the pointed tip against his pulse point. 

Half of Kevin's mouth curved into a pout. "If you're going to cooperate with them anyway, why can't you give me an interview first? Just a short one? I have my microphone right here."

"I'm not cooperating," Carlos said. "They can't interrogate a corpse."

"Of course not, silly! They'll make sure to resurrect you before they ask you anything." Kevin giggled, and then stopped, regarding Carlos's expression with a puzzled grin. "Do you think you're the only one to ever try to escape them like that? The only one who would rather die than help them? But death is a privilege, and one so very hard to earn.  
At least you're not an employee yet; suicide is a breach of contract...

"But no, a brief interruption in physical processes won't stop anything. StrexCorp knows better than to depend on the fragile imperfections of the human body. If yours is damaged beyond repair, they'll simply wire your cadaver's brain into a cyber-neural network and copy whatever information they need. Or maybe they'll do that anyways; it's convenient to have direct access to the knowledge and memories encoded in your brain cells, without any pesky soul or consciousness to muddle up the retrieval. Not as personal as a good old-fashioned interview or torture session, but..."

 _Memories_... Carlos pushed himself to his feet. Standing made him dizzy, and he put a hand to the wall to steady himself, avoiding the wired ladder—the gas, already taking effect? Or else aftermath from the electric shock, or psychological shock...

"Carlos?" Kevin struggled to sit up, reaching one hand out toward Carlos in a languid, beckoning gesture. It could've been Cecil's gesture—Cecil's hand, if not for the flaking brown caked under the nails. "Where are you going?"

Part of Carlos wanted to look back. To see Cecil's face, one more time, even if not Cecil's smile. But then, it wasn't as if he would keep it anyway.

Arm over his mouth to filter the air through his sleeve, Carlos headed down the hall, to the rows of closed doors. Though he couldn't smell anything, there was a sour taste in his mouth, and his nose and lips were tingling. But his head was still clear. Escape wasn't an option. Neither was his mission.

He couldn't stop Strex. But he didn't have to help them, either.

Faded stenciling on the next door labeled it as _Station Archives, aux._ The doorknob's latch was easily forced. The room beyond was scarcely larger than a closet, stuffed with cardboard cartons and a decade's worth of shows on old cassette tapes, dusty stacks of plastic cases with manually typed labels.

There were no yellow labels; the collection predated Strex, and there was nothing in Desert Bluff's past worth the time for the company to remember. The odds were that no one had been in this room for years. 

He crouched to check the boxes. One held a tangled knot of cables. Another had black trash-bags wrapped around its lumpy, unidentifiable contents; Carlos didn't try to open them.

The third was piled with old recording equipment, bulky tape recorders and old microphones. _Perfect_ , Carlos thought, then winced at the word choice. 

He took out the VN generator, unplugged the dictaphone and put the rest back in his pocket. The generator itself would be difficult to hide, but on its own was hardly more than a meditative aid. And the dictaphone's faded plastic case was a match to the rest of the equipment in the box; it probably (hopefully) would go unnoticed, too old to be of any interest to Strex. He fast-forwarded to the last minute of the tape—any longer and he risked it still playing when they found him. Dialing the volume up to maximum, he placed the player into the box, and arranged the outdated camouflage around it.

Then he took out his phone, and hesitated. He felt nauseous, light-headed. The vent on the wall overhead hissed softly, a subtly different spectrum of sound from the VN generator.

He'd come to Desert Bluffs prepared to die—a last resort; but it was an outcome he'd considered, had willingly accepted. Cecil would have understood; Cecil understood sacrifice. Cecil had let Carlos come to Desert Bluffs, knowing there was a chance he wouldn't return.

Would Cecil understand this? If he happened to recognize Carlos, among Strex's endless ranks of employees...that was unlikely, Carlos decided. More likely they'd dispose of him, once they realized he no longer knew anything of interest to them. It was the best he could hope for, now.

_I'm sorry, Cecil..._

Carlos opened the voice message on his phone, cued it to delete upon playing. Then he pressed play on the dictaphone, and let the flap of the box fall closed as the tape deck inside whirred to life.

Crouched on the sticky floor, he bent his head toward the box. The sound issuing from the tiny speaker, slightly muffled through the cardboard, was as indescribable as angelic grace—incomparable, unrecognizable, immemorial. Carlos knew he had heard selections of it before, when it had been recorded and in tests afterwards; but even with that evidence he would have sworn that he had never known its like.

On his phone, Cecil's voice started to speak, low and sure, and Carlos's breath caught, realizing that this was probably the last time he would hear it. Definitely the last time he would recognize it.

He almost dropped the phone. Almost ripped the cassette from the dictaphone and snapped it in half.

Instead he held his breath, pressed the phone closer to his ear and listened as Cecil commanded, _"Forget Night Vale. Forget you ever had any interest in the town, forget you ever even heard its name; forget that you came to Night Vale, and forget everything and everyone you know there—"_


	29. Chapter 29

Peterson takes Carlos to a clean lab, where the violet noise generator has been laid out on a glass table, electronic entrails splayed open. It's even stranger in person than in the photograph: a device Carlos has no memory of building, yet built as only he would. At a glance he can identify the modulator circuits, the oscillator, a magnetron cannibalized from a microwave oven, if he doesn't miss his guess. It's like getting a message from an unknown twin, or a version of himself from a parallel dimension.

"The power source has been removed," Peterson says. "We'll make it available when you're ready to demonstrate it. Otherwise..." He waves forward a nervous-looking technician, who shows Carlos a tablet with the Strex researchers' best guess of a circuit diagram. As she hovers anxiously, Carlos makes a show of checking all the connections, murmuring thoughtfully and stroking his chin.

Dana appears halfway through his third examination. "I've told Tamika, she's making the preparations now."

"Hmm?" Carlos says, looking down at the device as if he's noticed something.

"Yes," Dana replies, as if he'd spoken a completely articulate question. "She trusts you. ...Well, actually she asked what I thought, and then told me if I was wrong about you, that she'd come to the otherworld and bring Roberts' unabridged translation of _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_. But we'll be ready tomorrow morning."

Carlos nods, fighting to hide the sudden tension running down his spine.

"Well?" Peterson demands. The executive is physically tapping his foot. "Have you figured it out?"

"Um, eh...yes, that's it!" Carlos points to one of the interrupted circuits, most likely a forgotten fuse, but not obviously identifiable as such. "There's a part missing. It must have been lost when it was examined—I assume you disassembled the generator?"

Peterson turns to the technician. "T-the device was reassembled exactly as it was found, after inspection," the woman stammers. "The position of every piece was verified via x-ray, down to the millimeter. Nothing could have been misplaced."

"Except that obviously something was," Peterson says. "I'll let your supervisor know." His tone is mild, but the technician flinches as if she's already feeling the inspiration rod.

"Or else they never had it," Carlos suggests. "It might have broken off when I was captured."

"All the equipment collected with the device is here," the technician says, pointing to the plastic bin set aside on the table.

As Peterson watches closely, Carlos goes through the bin, then shakes his head. "It's not here. It would have been easy to miss, it's quite small," and Carlos holds up his hand, fingers spread a centimeter apart.

"What piece is it? We can replace it."

"That will be difficult," Carlos says. "I custom-designed it, using a specific polymetallic compound with the ideal torsion and ductility, molded into angles calculated down to the precise micrometer. I suppose with the right equipment, I might be able to recreate it—"

"Or," Peterson says, "I can get the original piece. If it's not here, then it's probably still at the radio station. What does this thing look like?"

"Well, it's an extrusion of a galvanized ferritic alloy—"

"I mean, what color is it? What shape?"

"Metal-colored," Carlos says, "and the shape is distinctive, a polynomial lemniscate, I could write out the equation for you—"

"Never mind," Peterson says. "You're sure that with this damn piece, you can get this device running?"

Carlos nods. "It looks intact otherwise. I'll need to calibrate it, but yes, with the piece I'll be able to get it functional."

"Then you better hope that piece is still at the station," Peterson says. He touches his earpiece, instructs, "Prepare transport. Carlos here gets one more shot to make this work."

 

* * *

 

Carlos doesn't remember how he originally entered the Desert Bluffs station, and had been unconscious when he was removed. But once inside the building, the place seems familiar, if vaguely so, like the uncertain memory of a childhood home. He isn't sure of the way, but he knows when they've reached the archive room, even before Peterson stops them at the door.

The executive isn't taking any chances; he brings along his own security to guard Carlos, the looming behemoth Julius and another man who looks short only by virtue of standing next to his partner. Judging by Julius's beetle-browed glare, he remembers the last time he guarded Carlos. Carlos wonders if Peterson mentioned that he had been rendered unconscious by a thirteen-year-old girl. He's almost tempted to tell Julius that this is nothing to be ashamed of. It would be more shameful to so disrespect Tamika Flynn.

Four grown men in the cramped archives room is a difficult fit. After a minute of being crushed between a filing cabinet and Julius's bulk, Peterson orders his security men to keep watch by the door.

Even without them, it's still crowded. More than Peterson can see, actually, with Dana's presence. She has an easier time, not being limited to the narrow aisles but stepping through the shelves, bending down to poke her head into boxes without opening them. While she searches, Carlos affects his own hunt. It takes some contortions to peer under the shelves without soiling his knees on the coated floor, and he has to suppress a shudder as his fingers brush those tacky layers.

Peterson doesn't seem to notice that stickiness, but he grimaces at the dusty shelves, keeping his hands in his pockets. "At least we know it wasn't swept up and thrown away. Doesn't this station have maintenance workers?"

"In the Night Vale station, the interns are responsible for the archives," Dana remarks. "Maybe the Desert Bluffs interns have enough other duties that they forget about here?"

Or maybe the station interns are contributing to the room's maintenance in other ways, Carlos thinks, shuddering again as the sole of his shoe sticks to the floor with his next step.

Before he can figure out a way to comment on this without Peterson noticing, Dana says, "Carlos! Over here, I think I found it."

Carlos peeks through the closest shelf. Dana stands in the other aisle, pointing down at one of the cardboard boxes. Marking its location in his mind, Carlos carries on with his fake search for Peterson's benefit. "Was I standing here?" he wonders aloud, bracing his hand on the dusty shelf between two stacks of cassettes. "No, wait, I was in the other aisle," he corrects, circling around the shelf as Dana passes through it to the other side of the room.

Peterson follows him, arms crossed impatiently. "We don't have all day; sooner or later a station employee will show up, and I don't want to explain to my superiors why I'm wasting time in some antique—"

"Here!" Carlos says, "I was definitely here, so..."

On cue, Dana takes action—Dana, and the orange pip which Carlos had placed on the shelf in the other aisle.

Peterson is watching Carlos like a hawk; he doesn't see Dana materialize behind him when she grabs the pip, or when she stands on her tiptoes to give a push to the tapes precariously stacked on the highest shelf.

But when the cassettes come raining down, pelting him with plastic corners, the executive spins around, hollering furiously, "You clumsy idiots, I told you to keep watch outside—!"

Dana will drop the orange pip before she can be spotted; Carlos relies on her Night Vale-hewn instincts and doesn't verify her safety. The moment the executive is distracted, he grabs for the box Dana indicated, prying up the cardboard flaps.

It's piled with old equipment, but Cecil in his dream had described his dictaphone exactly, so manifestly that Carlos immediately recognizes it. He snatches up the miniature player, shoves it under his lab coat and folds the box closed again, just as Peterson comes back around the shelves, rubbing his head and muttering curses to the Smiling God.

Before he can ask, Carlos cries, "I found it!" He plucks an object from the floor, and palms the orange pip Dana dropped with the same motion. The pip he hides in one hand, while with his other he excitedly brandishes his discovery at the executive.

Peterson squints at the object, his lips curling back from his teeth in more of a snarl than a smile. "That's a paperclip."

"It _looks_ a bit like a paperclip," Carlos says, "but it's actually way more complex and scientific—"

Peterson appears less than convinced, but just says, "If you're screwing with us, I'll know soon enough. And then you'll wish it was already tomorrow."

"It will work," Carlos says. He shoves his hands in his pockets, fingers curled around the orange pip and his knuckles bumping the dictaphone under his lab coat. "I have everything I need."

 

* * *

 

Back in the clean room, Peterson checks his tablet and orders, "Fix it. You have forty-eight minutes."

Carlos works carefully, methodically, soldering the paperclip into place, then testing the device with the available equipment, making the promised calibrations. Peterson watches him work, arms crossed and smile taut over his clenched teeth.

Dana disappears, though before going back to the otherworld, she walks through the walls to check out the adjacent rooms. She returns looking concerned. "Cecil isn't anywhere around here..."

Carlos nods fractionally in acknowledgement. He suspected that he would have to offer some measure of proof before they allowed him access to Cecil. At least they can't demand too much of him; he doesn't have the influence himself to take the memories of Night Vale from any of its citizens. They'll probably ask for some simpler example, such as removing the memory of his presence from someone's mind. He's rewound the tape; at Cecil's best guess there should be enough recording available for one or two trials, and still have what they need.

"I need to go get things ready," Dana says. "I'll try to check back with you tonight, but if the timing doesn't work out—good luck, Carlos."

Carlos nods again, daring to glance up long enough to meet her eyes as she vanishes from his sight.

Left alone again with the Strex employees, he takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders and asks, "When the time's up, will I be given the opportunity to test the device myself?"

"Impatient, are we?" Peterson says.

"Considering I only have until tomorrow morning—yes, I am." Carlos sets aside the multimeter, says, "It's operational, as far as I can determine with these tools. A working test with the power source will verify it."

Peterson checks his tablet again, says, "Then let's go meet your test subject. Talbot should've picked out an appropriate candidate by now."

The executive lets Carlos carry the VN generator, but the guards flank him in the halls and the elevator, every step of the way to the shielded door. Carlos recognizes it; he spent enough time in the institute's interrogation rooms to be ready, when the door slides open to admit them to the white-walled chamber, with the single metal chair bolted in the middle of the yellow-tiled floor, reflecting in the mirrored wall.

The chair is empty when they enter, restraints hanging slack. Beside it, Talbot stands before a portable cart, holding a bank of medical equipment as well as a small battery pack.

On the other side of the chair stands another man, in a dark suit with yellow pinstripes, solid gold helm curving down over half his face.

"Huck," Peterson exclaims when he sees the other executive, jerking to attention like a soldier called to muster. "I didn't think you'd...the full demonstration will be ready tomorrow morning, I apologize for the miscommunication—"

"Oh, I got your message, Johnny," says Acquisitions Director Aldis. "But Dr. Talbot here was kind enough to fill me in on some of the details you didn't bring up, and this was too exciting to wait!" Beneath the golden shield of his helm, the senior executive is beaming. "Great you see you again, Carlos," he says, extending his hand cordially, as if oblivious to the guards looming behind him. "I was glad to hear that we're now all on the same page, in regards to Night Vale."

"Not really," Carlos says. He doesn't return the offered handshake, but lifts his chin to look at his warped, amber-toned reflection in Aldis's helm.

"Oh?" The director tilts his helmet inquiringly.

"You want to use Night Vale," Carlos says. "I just want them to pay for what they did to me. I don't give a damn about Strex or its interests, or your Smiling God which is coming to kill me in less than a day."

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Peterson tense, jaw shifting. Aldis is stock-still for a moment.

Then his helm tips back and his mouth opens, wide enough to show blunt, shining white teeth as he laughs. "Just like you said, Johnny! I almost hope you do survive this report, Carlos. You'd liven up the board meetings, that's for sure. Now, let's get down to business. Is that the doohickey?"

"That's it," Peterson says. "According to Carlos, it's ready to go; we just need a subject." He turns to Talbot. "Doctor, have you—"

"That won't be necessary," Aldis interrupts. "As I pointed out to Dr. Talbot, we have the perfect subject right here." Still smiling broadly under his helmet, he turns to Peterson, and indicates the metal chair. "Would you take a seat, Johnny?"

Peterson stares. "Me?" He forces a chuckle that sounds like dry sticks scraping together. "Funny, Huck..."

Aldis's laugh is louder, bright and metallic as his helmet. "Isn't it perfect? See, it occurred to me that this might be another trick of Carlos's. Maybe he's lying to us again, while secretly still plotting with Night Vale—and anyone from Night Vale might be in on it; they could fake forgetting to trick us. On the other hand, a loyal Strex employee...you're not in cahoots with Carlos, are you, Johnny?"

Peterson's lips are rigidly set in their professional smile. "No, sir."

"I didn't think so. Besides, you've been so eager to show us how effective this technique can be—here's your chance to prove it!" He turns back to Carlos. "Can you do it? Demonstrate this thingamabob on the VP here?"

Carlos looks at Peterson. It might be a set-up...though if it is, Peterson's an even better actor than he knew. He's never seen that expression on the executive's face. "That depends on what you want him to forget," Carlos says carefully. "As I explained, the technique is most effective with memories I'm personally significant in." 

"In that case, how about if you erased yourself, Carlos, and all the research projects you've been involved in, from his memory? Could you pull that off?"

"But—but—" Peterson swallows, lifts his chin. "Director—Huck—I've been on this assignment for months—longer than that, counting the oranges. My entire executive career—"

"Don't worry, you'll be compensated," Aldis says. "It's not as if _we're_ going to forget about _you_ , hah hah!"

"How am I supposed to be credited for work I don't even remember doing?"

"Hmm, that could be a bit of a stumbling block," Aldis says. "But don't sweat it, Johnny. I've read all your reports; I'm sure Dr. Talbot and I can handle this project. I do have more experience with upper-level management, after all."

"No— _no!_ " Peterson shakes his head, backing away from the director and the chair. "I refuse—I won't participate in this experiment!" He gestures to his guards standing by the door, snarls, "Julius, Ted, step aside, we're leaving."

Aldis sighs. "Really, Johnny, I'd expect an executive, even a mere marketing VP, to know their contract better than that." He nods his golden helm at the guards. Peterson shouts their names, but the men don't even glance at his face; mutely they grab the executive's arms, force him back into the chair and cuff him in place, securing the restraints around his wrists and ankles.

"Carlos." Aldis snaps his fingers. "If you would proceed."

"Yes." Carlos obediently steps forward with the generator, forcing his hands and his breathing to remain steady. This wasn't the plan. But scientists must be prepared for multiple eventualities.

When he goes to put the headset on Peterson, the executive tries to twist away, thrashing against the restraints. At another nod from Aldis, the guards grab his shoulders, force them back and hold his head by the chin so Carlos can slip the set over his ears. After he's done, Talbot steps up to arrange his own equipment, affixing electrodes to Peterson's scalp and arms while the executive objects.

"Is that all you need?" Aldis asks, raising his voice over Peterson's increasingly vocal protests.

"It should be, once I've plugged in the battery pack," Carlos says. "Though I should mention, this device was rather hastily constructed, and the headphones aren't particularly sound-proofed. I'll need to be present in person, but given how this room amplifies sound, I would recommend limiting exposure, if you don't want your own memory to be affected."

"Dr. Talbot, you can monitor from the observation room," Aldis says. "Be sure to mute the volume while you're recording. I'll watch in person, but cancel my audio feeds," and he taps the side of his golden helm, over where his ears should be.

Carlos nods. "Those should be adequate precautions."

Aldis points at the guards. "Both of you, take position outside the doors. If Carlos here tries to make a break for it, shoot him."

"Ah, Director," Talbot says, "tomorrow's quarterly report...?"

"A few bullets won't kill him, not with all the nanotech bubbling in his veins," Aldis says. "Besides, Carlos isn't going to run, he's working with us now, right?" His tone implies that's a joke; unsure where the humor is supposed to lie, Carlos doesn't respond.

"Wait, hold on," Peterson says, stretching a smile back over his lips as Talbot starts to file out after the guards. "There's got to be a better way. Dr. Talbot—Greg, come on, you know you can find a better subject. I'm too involved, I'll bias the results—"

The door slides shut without Talbot looking back. "You ready, Carlos?" Aldis asks.

Carlos hooks up the battery pack and examines the VN generator, nervously winding a loose cord around his fingers as he verifies the connections, and at last says, "Ready."

"Switching off the audio feeds," the director says. "Give me a sign when you're done, and I'll flip 'em back. See you on the other side, Johnny," and he waves his fingers at Peterson, then crosses his arms and leans back against the mirrored wall, looking like he's braced shoulder to shoulder against his own double.

"Director? Can you hear me?" Carlos checks. Aldis doesn't answer.

Turning slightly to put his back to the director and the equipment cart between himself and the mirror, Carlos slips the loose cord under his lab coat, plugs it into the dictaphone by feel.

"What was that? What'd you do? Carlos? Carlos, wait." Peterson licks his lips, staring up at him, wide-eyed, pleading. "What's the plan—I know you have a plan. This vengeance act, it's bullshit, I know you better than that. Whatever you're doing, I can help—I can fake it, I'll pretend to forget. Come on, Carlos, please..."

Carlos pauses, one hand under his lab coat, resting on the dictaphone. He looks at Peterson's gritted teeth and clenched fists, and remembers, disjointed and isolated from any emotion, the feeling of those lips against his, those hands on him. Peterson's body moving against him, under the strobing lights and drugged haze of the StrexCorp party.

He thinks of coming to awareness in the radio station archives, bewildered and terrified, and all the months of doubt and confusion that followed. He thinks of Night Vale, of Cecil, and how little he knows, compared to all he's forgotten.

After everything Cecil has told him, he's still not sure who he really was. Who he really is.

"You wanted to do this to everyone in Night Vale," Carlos says. "You've been watching, observing me for months; even if Strex didn't do it to me, you know how damaged I am. And you wanted to put more people through this."

"I was wrong," Peterson gasps, straining at the manacles. "I know that now. But I can help you, I'll help Night Vale! Please, Carlos, being an executive, this promotion, this project, it's all I have. It's all I have left; Strex took everything else. But I can help you—"

"I should feel sorry for you," Carlos tells him. "I should feel guilty, doing this to you. But I don't. And I might hate you for that more than anything." He switches on the VN generator, lighting up the LEDs in a flashy show of false effectiveness, and under his lab coat presses the play button.

Carlos can't make out more than a muffled hum from the headset, but Peterson frowns. "What's that..." he starts to ask, only to trail off. His shoulders remain tensed, but his eyes go distant as his brow furrows, like someone trying to place a mostly forgotten melody.

Cecil was vague about this exact procedure, not recalling it clearly himself. Carlos can only hope he's doing it right. He leans forward, into Peterson's unfocused line of sight, and says, "Peterson—Johnny—listen. You don't know me. We've never met, you've never seen me, or heard my name—"

The furrow in Peterson's brow deepens. "Carlos...?" he mumbles.

"No," Carlos says. "Forget about me, and all my scientific work, all the projects I did, for Strex, and in Night Vale—forget all of them. Including this one. And anything personal—if there was anything personal, if you actually...whatever there was, don't remember that, either. You don't know anything about me—you don't remember me. Forget everything."

Carlos isn't sure it's enough, but there's only a limited amount of tape. He stops the dictaphone, turns off the generator and removes the headset from Peterson's head. Then he indicates to Aldis that it's over.

Grinning, the director straightens up, reactivates his helmet's audio feeds with a twitch of his head as he says, "That's all it takes? Impressive! That is, if it worked—hey, Johnny, how are you feeling?"

Peterson is blinking hard, as if there's something in his eyes. "Director—Director Aldis?" he stammers, and forces a smile, not as precise as his usual efforts. "What is this...?" He tries to stand, and his smile slips for an unprofessional moment as he takes in his location, and the restraints holding him. "Um, what's going on, sir? Is anything wrong?"

"That depends," Aldis says. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Peterson blinks again, shifting in a futile effort to make himself comfortable on the chair's hard metal angles. "Remember...? I don't...ah, there was a board meeting—to discuss the details of my promotion to executive...or was going to be? I don't..." He jerks up, eyes widening. "I didn't miss the meeting, did I, sir? I'm sure I—"

"No, Johnny," Aldis says, smiling with benevolent authority. "Actually, that's why you're here now—you've been doing great work for the company, a real bang-up job. Couldn't be happier with your performance."

"Great, sir, that's wonderful to hear," Peterson says, though he doesn't relax. "But, if I may ask, why the, uh...?" and he tugs at the manacles.

"Don't worry about that," Aldis says. "We were just trying out a new personnel management procedure. It should improve your efficiency and effectiveness. You might experience a bit of confusion, maybe a few moments of forgetfulness, but that'll pass. Isn't that right, Carlos?"

Peterson's gaze flicks to Carlos only long enough to register his researcher's lab coat, without a glimmer of recognition; then he turns his attention back to Aldis. "What procedure, sir? I didn't see anything in the monthly bulletin."

"It's a new technique," Aldis says, "pioneered by a special executive project. You're one of the first subjects, in fact. And you're doing great—the project manager is going to be thrilled. Someone's getting a promotion out of this for sure, and there's a good chance you'll get a citation for your contribution—might even be able to swing an ASAP project, if you play your cards right."

"Really, sir? Awesome!"

Aldis nods. "Now, before you go, Dr. Talbot will want an interview, run a few tests to make sure everything's ship-shape—here he is now." The interrogator re-enters the chamber with one of the guards. Talbot takes the VN generator from Carlos, while the guard unstraps Peterson, helps him up from the chair. He's steady on his feet and he addresses Julius by name, though his eyes still look dazed.

While Talbot starts removing the electrodes, Aldis excuses himself, ushering Carlos to the door. On the threshold, the director turns back and asks, seemingly casually, "Oh, one more thing, Johnny. I was wondering, how much have you heard about Night Vale?"

"The neighboring township? Only what's been in the executive bulletins. It's mostly converted by now, isn't it?"

"Have you ever been yourself?"

"To Night Vale? Once or twice, maybe—I played against their football team in high school, we had a few visiting matches. Way before Strex was sponsoring the team; I never got a chance to play under the orange triangle."

"Oh, I didn't know you were a sportsman," Aldis says. "I might be able to get you a spot on the company softball team."

"Really, sir?"

"Please, call me Huck. And sure, that would be no problem—our way of saying thank you, Johnny, for all you do for StrexCorp. You've been a big help."

"Thank _you_ , Huck!"

Aldis leads Carlos out of the chamber. Peterson watches them go, his smile anxious and obliging, until the door closes over it.

In the hall, Aldis crows, "Well, I'm sold!" He claps Carlos on the back hard enough to make him stumble. "That was top-notch work, could double our voluntary hiring numbers. Or some more precise multiple, but hey, save the stats for the HR eggheads, that's their job, right? What matters is, it works. Talbot'll have to confirm Peterson's on the level, but I think I've known him long enough to tell. And we'll need to scale it up for company-wide operations—but this is a great start, a really excellent start. I can't wait to present it to the Board."

"Director—Huck," Carlos asks, "I was told Cecil would be one of the first subjects?"

"Oh, yeah—if I was following Talbot's jargon, we'll be needing the Voice of Night Vale in our corner, to pull this off." The director pauses, turning his helm's blank golden visor towards Carlos. "Talbot also said you'd agreed to help Peterson out with that. To get the Voice on our side."

"I agreed to help Strex," Carlos says. "I'll convince Cecil—I'll do whatever I have to, to make Night Vale pay."

"Or rather, we'll pay them," Aldis says. "StrexCorp gives all its employees a generous wage, of course. At any rate, thanks a bunch for your help, Carlos." His helmet tilts, down towards the orange triangle on Carlos's neck, and it's probably only his imagination that the badge prickles against his skin like it's heating up. "You do great work, really; it's almost a shame that I nominated you for Employee of the Month."

Aldis had been an Employee of the Month himself, Carlos recalls Nisa telling him. And now he was one of the company's senior executives. Carlos looks at the man's opaque helm, wondering what he had done to be chosen as Employee. Who he was, before this. If he even remembers. 

"Do you think I'd make a good executive?" Carlos asks.

"Johnny thought so." Aldis shrugs. "From what I've seen, you don't quite have what it takes. This vendetta's cute, but it lacks scope. Vision. Night Vale's only one town, after all. Frankly I'm amazed anyone remembers it to begin with. —But hey, you might get lucky tomorrow, make it through the report. Just remember, it's not as bad as they say."

"It's not?"

"Nope," and Aldis inclines his head so the light catches off the edge of his helm, like a wink. "It's far, far worse than anybody can imagine. But no pain, no gain, eh? And StrexCorp has so much to gain..."

 

* * *

 

Carlos is lying on hot sand, every grain burning against his bare skin. Directly above him the sun shines, at its noon zenith in a cloudless sky. It's so bright that even when he squeezes his eyes shut he still sees it, yellow turned to throbbing crimson under his eyelids.

When he tries to raise his arms to shade his eyes, he finds they're tied down. Rough cord, wrapped around his wrists and ankles and staked into the ground, splays him out on the sand. The sunlight pours over his bare skin like a stream of fire, heat and light scorching him, baking the sweat from his skin and the moisture from his mouth. 

While scientifically he knows most of the sun's radiation can't penetrate his epidermis, he can feel the force of its heat bearing down. It permeates his flesh as he lays on the sand, burning his viscera, his chest become a furnace, ash instead of organs, smoke instead of blood. His lips are cracking, his tongue swollen and dry. The only wetness he can feel is behind his eyelids, his tears boiling into steam in the gory red stigma of the sun pulsing in his vision.

When it suddenly vanishes, red blotted out by blessed black, Carlos almost sobs in relief. A cool hand comes to rest against his burning forehead, as a voice as dark as that soothing shadow says, "Carlos? Oh, my Carlos, to see you like this, even in a dream, it's too terrible..."

"Cecil?" Carlos dares squint open his eyes. With the sun's glare he can't make out more than Cecil's silhouette, a featureless shadow against the bright blue sky as he crouches over Carlos.

"The dream's void cleared, and I found myself in this wasteland," Cecil says. "Overhead I saw vultures—or something like them—so I followed them here, to you. Carlos, what are you doing out here? Don't you know how dangerous it is in the desert at noon? Why didn't you find shade?"

"I can't move," Carlos says, "I'm tied down," and he tugs at his bonds to demonstrate, the thick cords scraping his wrists raw as he tries to push himself up off the sand.

"You are?" Cecil's hand moves from Carlos's brow to his wrist, the coolness of his fingers and the shadow they cast relieving the worst of the abrasions. "I don't see anything holding you here..."

Carlos lets his head fall back in the sand, basking in Cecil's shadow. "This is a dream," he says, "so the ropes would be metaphor. Psychological symbolism."

"Real, then," Cecil says. The sun's burning rays waver across Carlos's skin as his silhouette nods. "But if I can't perceive them myself, I can't free you from them."

"That's not your responsibility," Carlos says. "They're my metaphor to deal with. And there are more important things—I talked to Dana, Cecil, and she's passed word onto Tamika Flynn and the others. They should be ready tomorrow."

"What about everything else?"

"I found the dictaphone," Carlos says. "I have it with me now, hidden. And I told the Strex executives about the technique. They want to use it on you."

"Great!" Cecil says. "Then it's all going as planned."

"I had to demonstrate it," Carlos says, the words spilling out. "To convince them, I had to use it on a subject, a man I knew—a Strex man—"

"Oh, Carlos," Cecil sighs, and his hand so gently cups Carlos's cheek. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"It's not that—Cecil, I haven't told them about the cassette, but what I did was observed on camera, recorded—if their scientists analyze that recording, they might figure out how to replicate the effect."

"I doubt they could. Even you couldn't find a way to make another copy of that tape."

"But I'm just one scientist; Strex has hundreds to study the problem—"

"But not you," Cecil says firmly. "They don't have you. So it's fine. Besides, we knew that was a risk. It will be all right; they won't get a chance to study it anyway."

"Only if this works. Cecil, what if it doesn't work? I failed once already, and this time... If I'm wrong, then I've given Strex the key to destroying Night Vale."

"And if you're right, then we'll save Night Vale," Cecil replies. "So it's good that you're a scientist, since scientists are usually right."

"Except we're really not," Carlos says. "Experiments are about trying every possible wrong answer, until you've ruled out everything but the right one...but this isn't an experiment, I was wrong, to ever say it was. This is more important. Night Vale is more important than science—and you, you're...I don't want to lose you again—"

The warmth in Cecil's voice is nothing like the throbbing heat of the sun overhead. "You won't," he says. "You can't; you never did. Even if you forget me—even if I forget you—what we have, what we've done together, still exists."

"But if we forget—if we both forget, if neither of us even knows we ever loved one another—"

Cecil spreads his hand, his arm casting a shadow over Carlos's, shielding his burning flesh. "How many lovers have there been, in the course of human history?"

Carlos considers. "Assuming that every human being who reaches adult age averages greater than one lover in their lifetime, and calculating from estimates of the world population growth curve...a hundred billion, conservatively."

"And how many of that vast multitude of love affairs are long since passed, and no longer known to any living person?"

"The majority, I suppose, unless descended progeny counts as a record."

"So does that mean that those hundred billion people never loved, never were loved? That the trillions of 'I love you's that have been spoken since humans learned to speak meant nothing, merely because no one now recalls that they were said?" Cecil says. "Love that is remembered is the exception, not the rule. But all the love that has been forgotten is no less true. The solace and sorrow and joy that it brought, is no less real, whether or not anyone remembers it."

Carlos feels like something has broken loose in his chest, like some stricture around his heart has been severed, so it can beat freely again. His next breath of air is as hot and dry as before, but it doesn't hurt his lungs so badly. "Cecil...I don't know how I ever could have forgotten you."

Cecil bends over him, sealing his lips over Carlos's. The wetness of his mouth after the sun's baking heat is enough that Carlos would cry, had he the tears. "I love you, my beautiful Carlos," Cecil says. The sun above is growing larger and brighter still, so bright that Cecil's silhouette wavers like a heat mirage, evaporating like mist. But his voice remains clear even as his form fades. "And next time, we'll say it in person..."

 

* * *

 

Carlos is unsure when the dream ended, when he woke up—does not know if he actually did. He is on fire; his blood is magma, is molten metal. Is sunlight, scorching plasma incinerating him from the inside out, as he screams in agony.

Hands, cold against his burning skin, hold him down, still his thrashing limbs. A needle pricks his neck, and the pain subsides. The light isn't extinguished, but it's banked, diminished to a manageable torment. Carlos catches his next sob, releases it in a shuddering breath instead as he forces open his eyes.

He's lying on the cot in his cell. Uniformed guards on either side of him press his shoulders to the mattress, while Dr. Talbot stands over him, emptied hypodermic in hand, observing with strictly rationed concern. "How do you feel? Can you function?"

"I-I think so," Carlos says. The guards lift their hands, give him the space to sit up.

Carlos stares down at his arms, at the tracery of sickly, pallid lines showing under his skin. Their eerie glow ebbs as he watches, but the patterns don't disappear, pulsating dimly with each beat of his heart.

Talbot grabs Carlos's chin, tilts back his head to check his eyes with the impersonal brusqueness of a scientist examining a specimen. "Normal progression, for the thirty-first day," he pronounces. "But we need you capable now; Director Aldis is waiting to speak with you."

"Is there a problem?"

The interrogator's expression is unreadable. "We haven't been able to replicate yesterday's results. Director Aldis believes you will know why."

"I might," Carlos says.

"Get dressed," Talbot says, and hands him a plastic bag of clothes. "We have less than four hours until the quarterly report."

Carlos turns his back on the interrogator and the guards to change. They take it as modesty, and don't see him slide the dictaphone's narrow plastic case out of the elastic waistband of the boxers and into the pocket of his new outfit.

The suit in the bag is neatly pressed and sized to his measurements. Instead of a blazer, there's a lab coat, a formal cut in bright yellow, like the one he wore to the initial Employee of the Month ceremony. Only a month ago, Carlos objectively knows, but it feels like much longer. Yet at the same time he can recall, as vividly as if it were yesterday, standing under the lights, looking across the stage and seeing Kevin for the first time.

He hadn't even heard Cecil's voice yet, or didn't remember it, at least. But how hard had his heart begun to beat, seeing that forgotten face.

At the cell door, Talbot waves the guards through ahead of them, then stops Carlos. "One more thing," the interrogator says, and passes over a tiny plastic sachet. It's unmarked, untagged, and the pill within the clear envelope is blank white. "Take it prior to the quarterly report. It will mitigate the most severe pain and psychological trauma."

"More effectively than what you just injected me with?" Carlos asks, rubbing his thumb along his inner wrist. The ashen veins of sunlight beneath his skin brighten under the pressure, shooting tingling pangs up his arm.

Talbot shakes his head. "The intravenous counteragents aren't broken down as quickly by the nanomachinery. But that's the only dose I could procure on short notice. Theoretically it should be sufficient; executives have survived with less. None who had a quarterly report, true, but Peterson believed you had a chance."

"Peterson told you to give me this?"

"Prior to yesterday's demonstration," Talbot says. "I agree with his assessment; you're too valuable a resource to simply discard. And not only for your knowledge. I can only continue my research with an executive's support. Now that Peterson has been...reassigned, I require a new sponsor. If you survive to be promoted, you'll be in a position to supervise my studies, and will have a personal obligation to me."

Carlos closes his fist around the sachet. "Do you expect me to be grateful?"

"No," Talbot says, unmoved. "I heard what you told Peterson before you activated the generator. But even as an executive, you will still be a scientist; you'll see the logic in an alliance, whatever your personal feelings. Now come, the director is waiting."


	30. Chapter 30

Aldis is waiting in Talbot's office. He greets Carlos cordially, shakes his hand, but Carlos can't mistake that courtesy for kindness. Not when the executive's voice is so cold behind his white-toothed smile. "Dr. Talbot and I had a good long chat with Johnny Peterson. He's definitely not putting on anything. That's the good news.

"The bad news is, we tried out your doodad again last night. Exposed several different subjects to it—and you know what happened? Nothing. Absolutely nothing, even though it looked like it was working perfectly—blinking lights and everything, but no one lost their memories."

"While we couldn't listen to the sound itself to compare," Talbot says, "I analyzed the wavelengths. There was a specific interference pattern, an unidentified signal, apparent in the recording from Peterson's trial, that wasn't present in our later tests."

"My guess is, there's something you left out," Aldis says, "some trick to using it that you didn't let on. Can't say I blame you; it's the kind of thing I'd do myself. Always leave them wanting more—but now it's time to put your money where your mouth is."

He nods his helmeted head at the guards. Before Carlos can react, they grab his arms to hold him in place, as Talbot approaches with a tech scanner in hand. He slowly passes the device's wand over Carlos, starting at his feet and working up.

If Dana were here, there might be a chance, given her effect on electronic surveillance. But she hasn't yet appeared. And the scanner might react to the orange pip's low-level radiation. If it's discovered... Carlos acts suddenly, wrenching one arm out of the guard's hold to grope for his pocket.

He's not fast enough, of course. The guard's meaty fist closes around his pale-veined wrist, forces it up over his head. Carlos barely suppresses a yelp of pain; the pressure of that grip is excruciating, sending fiery pangs down the pale lines. But he manages to keep hold of the orange pip hidden between his fingers.

Talbot's scanner chimes over the lab coat's bulging pocket. The interrogator pats it down, pulls out the dictaphone. 

"Now what's this?" Aldis asks, tilting his helmet's visor at the miniature player.

"It appears to be an old-style audio recorder," Talbot says. "An analog signal rendered onto magnetic tape." His finger settles over the plastic play button.

"Wait!" Carlos shouts. "Don't play it—not if you want your memories intact."

Talbot withdraws his finger.

"What did I tell you, Doctor?" Aldis says. "There was a simple explanation after all." The executive gestures for the guards to release Carlos, as he comes forward to examine the dictaphone. "You were thoroughly searched when you were captured—where'd you get this?"

"From the radio station, when Peterson brought me yesterday," Carlos says. He straightens up, adjusts his lab coat, keeping his fingers loosely curled around the orange pip. "It was planted there by one of my contacts in Night Vale."

Aldis cocks his helmet like a man with visible eyebrows might raise them. "A Night Vale dissident in the Desert Bluffs station? How'd they get through new security protocols?"

"I'm not sure," Carlos says. "I was told the one who did it wasn't actually real..."

"I see," Aldis says, his voice momentarily dropping to frozen rage, then rising back into casual inquiry. "And why'd your unreal allies want you to have this?"

"Because they believe I'm on their side," Carlos says. "I told them I could use it to escape, make the guards forget I was ever here."

"But you didn't," Aldis says. "Or haven't, yet..."

"I'm not going to, obviously," Carlos says. "I can't anyway; the player's ineffective without the VN generator. And it wouldn't work on you regardless, since you can cut your audio feed."

"So you didn't run away. But you didn't give it to us, either."

"I was intending to, before the quarterly report," Carlos says. "Until then, it was the only leverage I had."

"Leverage to get you what?"

"You know what. I want Cecil Palmer." Carlos squares his shoulders, stares into the blank golden mirror of Aldis's helm. In his clenched fist, the hard kernel of the orange pip digs into his flesh. "Before I'm sacrificed to your damned god, I want to know that he's paying for what he did."

For a moment the executive doesn't move. Then, under the golden shield, his smile broadens. "Doctor, pack up the thingamajig. Let's go give Carlos here what he wants."

 

* * *

 

It's even earlier than he thought, Carlos realizes, when he climbs out of Aldis's windowless limousine. The sun is up, but not yet climbed above Desert Bluffs' skyline; the sky overhead is a flat, glowing paleness, a match to the pallid veins snaking under his skin.

The nanotech in his blood burns when he steps onto the sidewalk, out of the limo's shade. Carlos gasps involuntarily, ducks his head and thrusts his hands into the pockets of the lab coat.

"Come on, it will be easier inside," Aldis tells him. "You've still got a couple hours until the report." The executive leads the way, through the glittering glass entrance of the radio station.

Blue-uniformed Strex security march with Carlos, though their attitude is subtly different from the usual impersonal brusqueness. The hands on his shoulders steer him with light, careful touches, and they open the doors for him with the polite deference of bodyguards chaperoning an important politician.

The effect is magnified inside the station. There are more than a few employees in the halls, despite the early hour. Rather than simply moving aside to let Carlos and the others by, they stop in their industrious tracks, turn to watch them pass. At first Carlos assumes it's respect for Aldis's rank; but the employees' eyes aren't on the executive, but on Carlos himself. 

He doesn't understand until he notices an intern's stare trace along his body, up to his neck. When Carlos reaches up to touch the orange triangle on his throat, the young man starts, hastily looks away.

Even inside under the bright fluorescent lights, the trails of the nanotech are obvious, like phosphorescent tattoos, increasingly vivid against Carlos's darker skin. The mark of an Employee of the Month, even more than the badge, visible proof that he's been chosen for the company's deity—no wonder he's garnering such attention.

Aldis brings them to a secondary recording studio. The control room isn't as cramped as the archives, but Carlos has to stand rigid to keep from bumping into the glistening, fluid-drenched equipment lining the walls and the switchboard. Between the advanced electronics hang chains and shackles, currently unused, though rust-brown residue flakes on the steel.

The adjacent recording booth is dark, turning the wide viewing window into a mirror. Carlos adverts his eyes from his reflection, and the lines crisscrossing his face like a mask of pale spider webs.

Aldis's suit is stain-resistant, no crimson smearing the pressed pinstripes when he leans against the switchboard. The VN generator has already been prepared, wrapped in moisture-protecting plastic and hooked into the board. Talbot takes out the dictaphone, asks, "Which lead connects the cassette player to the generator?"

"Green wire, silver plating," Carlos says. He watches Talbot plug the dictaphone into the generator, braces himself as the doctor claps a pair of heavy headphones over his head and presses play.

The button clicks down, but there's no sound from the dictaphone or the generator; they've been wired into the studio's sound system.

Talbot checks a readout on his tablet, stops the tape. "The audio profile more closely resembles the previous successful trial, but not precisely."

"There's individual variance on the tape," Carlos offers. "To match yesterday's demonstration, you'll have to rewind. About twenty seconds should do it." He doesn't watch Talbot rewinding, idly studying the switchboard instead, as if it's not significant. Though he has to fight a flinch at the click of the tape stopping. He knows that sound too well; it's the first thing he can remember hearing.

"Yes," Talbot says, satisfied, "that's an exact match."

It should be, Carlos reminds himself; according to Cecil, the cassette's playback couldn't be effectually copied. Any recording Strex made should be incomplete, missing the most crucial factors.

Still, he has to wet his lips twice before he manages to ask, "So is there actually a subject to test it on? Or are you just going to waste more of what little time I have left?"

"Patience, Carlos," Aldis says. "You know what they say about those who wait," and he reaches across the board to flick a switch. 

Light floods the control room from the recording booth window. Behind the reinforced glass pane, where one might expect to see a desk or a microphone, sits a man in a folding chair, blindfolded and gagged, arms cuffed behind his back.

Carlos stares and can't stop, can only hope his focus will be taken for hatred. Cecil is conscious now, aware. As Carlos watches, he turns his head up toward the light; some glimmer must show through the blindfold. His mouth moves around the gag in a stifled question.

This is a radio station; the booth is soundproofed. It's only that knowledge which keeps Carlos from shouting Cecil's name. It's only the guards standing between him and the window that keeps him from smashing his fists against it until it shatters.

That, and Talbot's small-eyed stare, and Aldis's blank gold helm turned his way. Carlos makes himself breathe evenly, in and out. The station's conditioned air isn't as hot as the desert's, but as bone dry, and so redolent with coppery iron that he almost gags. But he forces his voice level to ask, "So what should I tell Cecil to forget? StrexCorp's business in Night Vale? Or everything about Desert Bluffs?"

"None of the above," Aldis says. "You won't be the one talking to him. According to Dr. Talbot, you don't have the influence for that—you don't have a strong enough association with Strex. Cecil most likely wouldn't forget anything, if you were the one telling him to. And we wouldn't want that, would we? No, we've got someone else in mind." He touches the comms button on the side of his helmet, orders, "Send him in."

The man who enters the control room is neither short nor tall, not fat or thin. Carlos has to look twice, at Cecil—still bound and blindfolded in the recording booth—and back again at the newcomer. No blindfold or gag, but under the black straps it's the same face. The same hair, the same line of the shoulders; even the cut of the shirt is similar, though Cecil's has more rips and fewer bloodstains.

Ungagged, Kevin's smile stretches his lips to their physical limits. "Hello! I'm here for the special assignment?—Oh, Carlos, you're here already!" The radio host's cheerful tone doesn't change, but his smile twists oddly. "I hadn't heard you'd arrived. Is this a rehearsal?"

"Not yet," Aldis says. He motions Kevin to him, though doesn't offer to shake his hand, and when he gestures his hand hovers a few centimeters above Kevin's shoulder, not brushing the fluid-enriched cloth. "There's something you can help us with first. If it goes well, you'll be making a special broadcast to Night Vale, with a new co-host."

"A new co-host?" It's impossible for Kevin's smile to get any broader or his back any straighter, but he rises on his tiptoes trying. "Is Lauren being reassigned? Not that I don't _love_ working with Lauren, but surely she has more important things to do, then interfering—that is, helping out, with my little old show..."

"We'll see about Lauren," Aldis says. "Depending on how this morning's quarterly report goes, there may be an executive candidate to replace her in the Greater Desert Bluffs Metropolitan Area. Meanwhile, meet your co-host," and he gestures at the recording booth.

For a beat Kevin is silent, taking in his bound and gagged double; then he shrieks like a bird of prey, clapping his hands. "Cecil Palmer, as I live and smile! What an honor, to have you here!"

"He can't hear you," Aldis says. "Not yet, anyway. What do you think, Carlos? If the Voice of Desert Bluffs tells Cecil to forget about Strex, and everything we've accomplished in his community—once he lets go of those silly little grudges, it'll be a piece of cake for you to convince him to cooperate. And then he can help us remove all those inconvenient memories of Night Vale from its denizens."

Carlos glances at Kevin, considering. "Yes, that should work."

"Great!" Aldis says. "Kevin, here's your microphone. Do what Carlos tells you to."

Kevin takes the microphone, returning Carlos's look—though not meeting his eyes, his gaze dancing around his face, following the patterns of glowing lines. "Of course," he says. "Whatever the Smiling God decrees."

"Greg, everything's good to go?" Aldis asks. "Carlos's new gizmo will work as promised?" 

"It should be fine," Talbot says. "I would recommend temporarily cancelling your audio feeds, and I have the noise-cancelling headphones for extra protection, since I'll be in close proximity with the devices. But they shouldn't be necessary; the recording booth is completely sound-proofed."

Still, Carlos isn't the only one who holds his breath, as Talbot puts on the headphones and turns on the VN generator. As its lights start to blink, the doctor checks the sound wave on his tablet, then starts the dictaphone.

On this side of the glass, they can hear nothing, but the tablet's display wavers, jagged lines interrupting its steady diagonals. And in the booth, Cecil suddenly sits up, chin raised, at attention.

It's the violet noise he's responding to, Carlos tells himself, just that temporary influence. Not the sound on the dictaphone's tape—the ineffective sound. Cecil had told him so, that the recording was so delicate that even a single playing rendered it useless. This replay might have an identical wavelength according to Talbot's equipment, but there was more to Night Vale than Strex would ever know, and the recording they're playing for Cecil now should have all the neurological impact of a disco track.

Unless Carlos had misunderstood. Or miscalculated the timing—if the cassette played for too long, reached the last unused section of the recording...

"Speak," Talbot instructs.

Kevin lifts the microphone. Mouth dry, Carlos murmurs instructions into his ear.

In the booth, Cecil sits motionless, listening intently as Kevin tells him, "Hi, Cecil, Kevin here—remember me? But you shouldn't! You should forget about me. Forget all about me, and Strex. Forget that you ever came to Desert Bluffs, or that I ever came to Night Vale; forget everything you know about Strex, everything we've done. Have it be like it was before you ever heard of Strex, when everything was inefficient and imperfect and you only smiled when you were happy..."

"That should do it." Talbot turns off the tape and the VN generator, removes the headphones.

Kevin lowers the microphone, asks eagerly, "Did it work? Oh, I hope so, I'd like to meet Cecil again. I think we got off on the wrong foot, the last first time we met. And it's always nice to welcome someone else into our big happy Strex family."

"Carlos, if you'd do the honors?" Aldis says, waving him to the door into the recording booth. "Cecil would appreciate a friendly face now, I'm sure."

In the folding chair, Cecil is twisting against the handcuffs, not struggling but testing their limits with methodical, practiced routine. He tenses at the sound of the door opening, turns his blindfolded face toward it.

It takes a couple of swallows for Carlos to wet his throat enough to speak. "Cecil, it's me. Carlos." Cecil is motionless, expression indiscernible under the black straps crossing his face. "I'm here to—to help you." With shaking hands Carlos unbuckles the gag and carefully draws it from Cecil's mouth, then lifts the blindfold.

Cecil stares up at him, and for a split second Carlos thinks he sees—shock, or wonder, or some other emotion too overwhelming to behold.

Or else it's only Cecil's eyes adjusting to the light; he blinks and squints at Carlos's face, says, "Carlos?" Even hoarsened by the gag, that baritone is unmistakable. "What are you doing here? And where is here? I don't recall the Secret Police picking me up..."

"They didn't," Carlos says. "That's not why you're here." His fingers brush Cecil's cheek, inadvertently, but Cecil tilts his face into the caress. The smile breaking across his chapped lips is nothing like Kevin's—nothing like any Strex's employees; a little like Dana's, but even fonder, even more joyful. But perhaps Cecil always smiles at him like that.

"Why, then? Ooh, is this an experiment?" Cecil bounces a little in the chair, tugging at his cuffed arms. "You just had to ask, Carlos, you know I'd do whatever you wanted, for science!" He sounds blithely unconcerned, no hint of the fear and stress that colored his voice in all his pirated broadcasts.

Gut twisting, Carlos glances at the recording studio window. The glare of the lights turns this side to a mirror, the control room and the men in it concealed behind their reflections. "It's not that," he tells Cecil. "The restraints were...for your protection." He reaches around to open the handcuffs. The throbbing of the nanomachinery along his nerves increases with the effort, makes his hands clumsy; he grits his teeth and breathes shortly around the pain. "We're with friends. You were in danger, but we saved you. But now Night Vale is in trouble, Cecil; will you help?"

"Of course," Cecil says. "Anything for Night Vale!"

That confident accord reminds Carlos of Kevin, for all the different timbre; it's the same practiced cheer, but it sounds so wrong in Cecil's voice of depth and shadows. And try as he might, Carlos can't tell whether it's pretense or in earnest.

He gives Cecil his hand to help him to his feet. Cecil is still smiling, though his brow furrows as he runs his thumb across Carlos's palm, along the pale threads traversing the life line and love line. "What's this, Carlos?"

Carlos shivers. The marks sting at that light touch, but the contact is electric in a way that has nothing to do with the nanotech in his veins. He thought the dreams had felt real; he realizes now how mistaken he was, compared to being with Cecil in body as well as mind.

But it's not only them here, watching. And the blistering burn under his skin, throbbing with every heartbeat, reminds him of how little time he has left. Carlos glances again at the mirror of the window, pulls his white-lined hand from Cecil's as he says, "It's nothing. Just an experiment of mine, very scientific."

"Oh, I see. How neat!" Cecil's gaze flicks to the window as well. Then, deliberately, he takes Carlos by the arm, leans in and murmurs, "I love you, my beautiful Carlos."

 _And next time, we'll say it in person._ Carlos starts to gasp, but Cecil's lips press against his before any sound escapes, kissing him like he kissed Carlos in last night's dream. Only now the sunlight isn't burning against Carlos's skin but within it, scorching and painful; and Cecil's lips are chapped, as dry as Carlos's in that desert heat—but open and welcoming, and Carlos drinks of him like a man dying of thirst.

Only for a moment, as long as he dares; then he draws back. It's not their first kiss, Carlos knows—not even the first he remembers, if their dreams count. But he's breathless, lightheaded, and the pounding of his heart is more than fear.

That was no casual kiss of greeting. Cecil remembers everything.

"So what happened to Night Vale?" Cecil asks. "You said we're in trouble?"

"Yes, which is why Carlos came to us," Aldis says behind him. Carlos steps back, gathering his composure, as the gold-helmed executive enters the booth. "Huck Aldis, Acquisitions Director for Strex Synernists Inc. Have you heard of us?"

"I can't say that I have, but it sounds significant," Cecil says politely, accepting Aldis's handshake. "So you're Carlos's friends?"

"Luckily, we are," Aldis begins to say, though whatever lies he spins after that Carlos misses, because that's when Dana appears. She's disconcertingly standing halfway within the director, so the cloud of her hair obscures his smile, just reaching the bottom of his helm.

"Carlos, we're all—Cecil!" she cries, breaking off to beam at Cecil. "You're here, thanks be to the Void!"

Cecil, not holding the orange pip, doesn't hear her greeting; he continues listening to the Strex executive. Unperturbed, Dana throws her arms around her old boss anyway in a brief, intangible embrace, before turning back to Carlos. "We're ready to go, Tamika and everybody. Are you...?"

Carlos gives his head a slight, almost imperceptible shake. _Not yet._

"—Isn't that so, Carlos?" Aldis says loudly.

Carlos has no idea what he's agreeing to. "Um, yes—yes." Seeing his reflection in Aldis's golden helm as the executive looks at him, he makes an emphatic nod. "Absolutely."

"Were you thinking about something scientifically important?" Cecil asks guilelessly.

"I'm sure he was," Aldis says. "Carlos has a lot on his mind at the moment, don't you, Carlos?" The executive puts his arm around Carlos, though the friendliness of the gesture is belied by his iron grip on Carlos's shoulder, sending tingling pain along his bright-lit nerve endings. "But he won't let himself get distracted for long; he knows how important this is. For Night Vale." He steers Carlos to the control room, Cecil following after as if pulled on a string.

Kevin fairly leaps forward to greet them. "Cecil, how lovely to meet you!" he squeals. Before Cecil can offer, Kevin grabs his double's hand in both of his and pumps it eagerly. "It's an honor, I simply _adore_ your work in Night Vale."

Dana gasps in shock. Cecil had some warning; after all the broadcasts in Night Vale, he must have recognized Kevin's voice. But his shoulders stiffen with the effort not to flinch, and it's all Carlos can do not to charge forward, put himself between Cecil and the other radio host.

Though that proves unnecessary; as soon as Kevin notices Carlos's eyes on him, he lets go of Cecil and hops backwards, almost nervously, his smile twisting again.

"Forgive him, Mr. Palmer, he sometimes comes on a little strong," Aldis says. "This is Kevin; he's another radio professional, who's going to be assisting you. Right, Carlos?"

"Yes," Carlos says. "You can trust Kevin, Cecil. He's very helpful, even if his appearance is...a little surprising."

"Hello, Kevin," Cecil says. If he sounds dubious, it's only to be expected under the circumstances. Dana steps up beside him, in a show of invisible solidarity. "So how is this going to help Night Vale? What do we have to do?"

"That's—" Carlos starts to answer, only to be cut off by an unexpected surge of agony, so sudden and sharp that it closes his throat. He staggers, doesn't fall only because Cecil moves to catch his elbow, faster even than Aldis standing next to him.

"Carlos?" Cecil asks anxiously, echoed by Dana.

"I-I'm all right." Leaning against Cecil's arm, Carlos looks down at his hands. The pale lines along his skin, brightened to blistering white, are fading again; the pain abates with it, though it lingers like the insipid markings. Straightening from Cecil's support, Carlos turns back to Aldis. "We should show Cecil what to do—is there another subject ready?"

"Here's Dr. Talbot with him now," Aldis says, as Talbot enters the control room. Two guards follow him in, with another man between them, stumbling he's pushed along.

Dana starts when she sees him. "Dave!"

Of course Dave doesn't notice her—and might not even if he had the orange pip. The other scientist is technically conscious, but his pupils are blown so wide that his eyes are black, glassy and unfocused. "Hiiii, Carlos," he mumbles, with a wave that's more of a flop of a limp hand, swaying in place between the guards. He's thinner than when Carlos last saw him, eyes and cheeks sunken and dangerously wan; but he's grinning with aimless pleasure as his head lolls back. "Nice t'see you again...everything's nice, isn't it?"

"Yes, very nice," Carlos replies. Over Aldis's shoulder he meets Dana's invisible eyes, dips his head in an almost imperceptible nod. _Now._

"On it," Dana says, and vanishes.

Oblivious to her departure, Cecil is looking at Dave, affecting surprise. "What's wrong with him? Carlos, isn't that one of your scientists?"

"Hey, is that Cecil?" Dave slurs. "Nice that you're back together, he was so sad before..."

"It, um—it's not actually him," Carlos tells Cecil, lying for Aldis's benefit. "It just looks like him, the way Kevin here looks like you. This is what we need you to do, to help him remember who he really is. —Only it won't work, with him in this state," Carlos tells Aldis. "His mental faculties are too compromised."

"That's likely true," Talbot concedes. "It won't be effective if he's unable to focus on the audio signal. I can give him a counteragent?"

"Do it," Aldis says, and Talbot takes out a hypodermic, injects it into Dave's arm. The scientist doesn't flinch at the needle's prick, just giggles as if he's been tickled.

"It will take a few minutes to take effect," Talbot says.

"Take him into the recording booth," Aldis says, "it'll be easier if—" The executive's command is interrupted by a muffled, percussive thud that might have been a distant explosion.

The lights overhead flicker, return slightly dimmed. An amber strobe begins flashing over the door, as a siren starts up, its low electronic moan rising into a wail.

"Oh, my," Kevin says, grinning up at the blinking light. "It's been a while since I've seen that..."

"What is it?" Talbot asks, also eying the strobe, counting its erratic pulses. "I'm not familiar with that signal—what's going on?"

"The station's been put on full defensive alert," Aldis says, his smile showing a few less teeth than usual. "No doubt some careless security manager overreacted."

Talbot looks considerably more alarmed. "What's the protocol? Should we exit?"

"Not unless you want to get demoted," Kevin says. "Only authorized personnel are allowed in the halls during a siege. The morning show will be extra interesting, if we can't get to a broadcasting studio for the quarterly report." Then he winks at Carlos, a stomach-churning feat given his eyes. "Though I guess if anyone's authorized, he is! Or will be...."

"Everything will be sorted in time for the report," Aldis says, in the calmly certain tone of a man unaccustomed to contradiction. "Meanwhile we'll carry on—"

"Mr. Aldis?" One of the guards steps forward, hand to the side of his helmet, where the comms light is blinking. "We're being summoned outside to assist in the defense—"

"Countermanded," Aldis raps out. 

"But, sir, the station is a Priority One asset?"

"We have a potential Zero asset right here, and with Lauren out of town, I'm the most senior executive on site," Aldis says. "I want you here, not wandering outside looking for some vague hypothetical threat."

"Sir." The guard swallows hard, Adam's apple bobbing between the straps of his helmet. "According to the report, the, um, hypothetical threat includes a number of giants, and winged creatures tentatively identified as ang—"

Aldis brings his teeth together with a sharp click. "Fine! The rest of you can go. You, and you," he points arbitrarily at two of the guards, "are to keep watch outside this studio door. Make sure no one and nothing gets in or out of here without my authorization. Understood?"

"Yes, Mr. Aldis!" The guards scramble to obey.

"Are we safe here?" Cecil asks, and he probably doesn't have to fake that nervous quaver. "That man who Carlos says isn't his scientist doesn't look very well." Indeed, Dave's intoxicated grin is faltering; he yanks back when Talbot tries to lead him into the recording booth, shoulders hunched and clumsily trying to cover his ears to block out the siren. "And neither does Carlos!" Cecil gestures at Carlos, who leans against the booth window, trying to look appropriately ailing. It doesn't take much effort; it feels as if the siren is fanning the fire through his veins, throbbing in time with its wail.

"They'll both be fine," Aldis says reassuringly. "Kevin, silence that siren, will you? Mr. Palmer, excuse the interruption, we're experiencing some minor technical difficulties. If you'd just listen to Carlos, he'll tell you what to do—won't you, Carlos?" The executive's jovial tone completely contradicts the malice in his smile. Or maybe Carlos is just imagining the viciousness in those bared white teeth. "You didn't come so far to give up now."

"No," Carlos agrees. The siren cuts off mid-shriek; in the welcome silence, Carlos manages to straighten up. He takes Dave's shoulder, gently turns him back to Talbot. "It's all right, just go with Dr. Talbot now. "

Dave stares at him hazily, then mumbles, "Okay," and obediently enters the recording booth. He's rousing from the drug's stupor, however, trying to tug his arms out of Talbot's grasp as the interrogator cuffs him to the chair, mouth moving in questions that are inaudible through the soundproofed window.

Talbot leaves him slumped and manacled in the chair and returns to the control room. "He should be lucid enough to respond to the violet noise," he reports, "but still generally cooperative. It will be interesting to observe whether his pliability enhances the effect."

As the doctor sits before the switchboard to ready the VN generator, Dana reappears. Though she stands beside the window dividing the recording booth from the control room, she casts no reflection in the glass. "Carlos! Tamika and my friends have started the distraction—is it working? The guards are gone, that's good. And Cecil's still here—and Dave, too, so they did bring him like you thought. So—Carlos? Carlos, why are you glowing again—that light, I know that light, it's the same one here. How—"

Before Carlos can figure out how to answer, he's overwhelmed by a wave of pain, non-localized, scorching agony. Like being splayed out under the burning desert sun, except the light and heat isn't pouring from above but from everywhere, from nowhere. He can't move, can't breathe, trapped in that excruciating grip.

He thinks he hears his name, Aldis's impatient command and Kevin's curious inquiry and Dana's shout, high-pitched with concern. But they're drowned out by a sound louder than the siren before, a thunderous rumbling, like the grind of eroding mountains, or the roar of a great furnace. Blinded, deafened, paralyzed, Carlos can feel his very self being squeezed out, like flattening a tube of glue, emptying him to refill with something else, something better, something brilliantly, gloriously perfect—

Then in his ear, deep and close and soothing dark, Cecil says, "Carlos, it's all right, it's almost over. We'll get you out of here, out of Desert Bluffs and back to Night Vale, you only have to endure a little longer..."

Carlos realizes he's on his hands and knees on the floor. Sticky fluids ooze between his white-veined fingers, and the only thing that keeps him from retching is his empty stomach. Cecil kneels next to him, heedless of the mess, his arm wrapped over Carlos's shoulders. Dana crouches on his other side, anxiously peering into his face.

Above and behind him, Talbot is saying dispassionately, "—activity could be accelerating the physiological catalyst. Or another factor—a tear in the local dimensional barriers could encourage premature infestation, for example."

"But it's not yet time for the quarterly report," Kevin says, with the mildest hint of irritation. "The Smiling God wouldn't be _early_ , would He? That's very unprofessional..."

"The report will be on time, like always," Aldis says. "God probably has His own holy reasons to be coming through now, but I'm sure He will give us a chance to finish up our business here first."

Carlos isn't nearly as sure. His ears and eyes are aching; his face is numb, as if he was slapped so hard he's still waiting for sensation to return. He manages to get out of his pocket the sachet Talbot gave him earlier, but it slips from his sticky, trembling hands.

Cecil deftly catches it, sends Carlos a questioning glance and tears it open to offer him the pill inside. Carlos dry-swallows it, then leans on Cecil to stand. His legs are rubbery, but the pressure relents enough for him to breathe. He fills his lungs with the station's dry, rancid air, manages to get out, "It's all right...I'll be all right."

"Great," Aldis says. "Though, before we get on with it, there's one thing I'm wondering about." He swings his golden helm towards Cecil. "Mr. Palmer, how did you know you're in Desert Bluffs?"

Leaning against Cecil, Carlos feels every muscle in him tense. Carlos turns his own head to catch Dana's eyes, touches his hand to his own breast pocket as he mouths, _Dave—the pip._

"You just told Carlos that he'd be getting out of Desert Bluffs," Aldis goes on, "but we hadn't mentioned to you where we are."

"I—I assumed," Cecil says, almost but not quite smoothly enough, "since this is clearly a radio station but not Night Vale's, and Desert Bluffs' is the next nearest I know of..."

"Makes sense," Aldis says, "though I wonder why you didn't recognize it the last time you came here, when you switched places with Kevin."

"When I...I don't know what you mean—"

"He means the sandstorm, which I think you remember, even if you weren't supposed to," Kevin says, "but more to the point—who is that?"

And he points at the window into the recording booth, where Dana has taken the orange pip Carlos secreted in Dave's pocket. Lent tangible form by its transdimensional properties, she's quickly undoing the straps around the other scientist's wrists, helping him up out of the chair.

Cecil's eyes widen with something like hope as he mouths Dana's name.

"She looks familiar," Kevin remarks, "but I don't think that's one of our interns..."

"What the—stop her!" Aldis commands, pointing at Talbot for lack of a better option. The doctor jumps up, pulling out an inspiration rod, and hurries to the door into the booth.

By the time he's unlocked it, Dana has released Dave and handed him the pip, rendering her indiscernible to the others. She's still perceptible to Dave, standing beside him to speak instructions into his ear. Dave puts his hand to his mouth, slipping the orange pip between his teeth as Talbot brings down the inspiration rod.

Dave throws up his arms, but his defense is useless; the rod cracks across his forearms with a sizzle of energy. Dana cries out in inaudible protest as Dave groans, reeling back. Talbot grabs his arms, with the rod and his greater bulk easily leveraging him back into the chair.

"The pip—now, Dave!" Dana shouts, mostly unheard. But Dave's jaw works, and there's a tiny crunch, barely audible in the control room; Carlos only hears because he's listening for it.

"What's that?" Talbot demands, grabbing Dave by the chin to force his head back. "You don't have a cyanide capsule, we verified—"

Dave spits in Talbot's eye. The interrogator slaps him without changing expression. The meaty smack is hard enough to snap Dave's head back, but when he pulls it up his lips are stretched over his teeth, in a grin that meets not a point in the company handbook. "Not cyanide," he says, "that wasn't an apple seed..."

He stutters on the last word—no, not stuttering; it's not his tongue which wavers, but his entire figure, winking out and then returning. Talbot's form blinks with it, a glimpse of the far wall showing for an instant behind his solid mass.

Carlos had calculated the catalyst in the orange pip to be potent enough to affect two people. It appears to be an accurate estimate.

"What did—do?!" Talbot demands, lurching back from Dave. "Where—you get—catalyst?"

His voice stutters, fading in and out in time with his body. Talbot grabs for the door, only for his hand to skip through it. He reaches toward Aldis, moving in jerky flickers, like a film missing half its frames.

Sitting in the chair, Dave looks at Carlos, lowers his head in a nod that might be meant as thanks, or merely acknowledgment. Then he disappears, chair and all. Half a second later Dr. Talbot goes as well, vanishing from the recording booth with only the pop of imploding vacuum to mark their displaced existences.

Dana fades with them, her anchor to the station lost with the pip. She manages to linger long enough to stick her thumb up in the air, telling Carlos, "Good luck—I'll see you both in Night Vale!"

Then she is gone.

It's the last time Carlos will ever see her. He's known this all along, but there's still a second that Carlos can only stare.

Kevin's grin doesn't waver but he's rocked back on his heels; even Aldis is frozen, jaw dropped under his helm's shield.

But Cecil is in motion. Leaving Carlos leaning against the window, he lunges for Aldis. Before the executive can react, Cecil has him in a chokehold, locking an arm around his throat below the helmet.

"Don't call any of your guards in here," Cecil says, his baritone dropping to a bass growl, "or I'll break your neck. That goes for you, too, Kevin—stay back."

Kevin puts his hands in his pockets, continuing to smile blithely. "My, my, Cecil, I never guessed you were so affectionate. I'm a little bit curious whether you'll actually do it."

"This is a senior executive, isn't he," Cecil says. Without changing his grip he forces Aldis back against the wall by the door. The bloodstained chains rattle as he shoves the executive against them. "Like Lauren. You've been to Night Vale, Kevin; you've seen what Strex has done to my town. You know I can do this."

Kevin's face is turned toward Cecil, though his eyes makes it difficult to tell where exactly he's looking, or what he's planning. The situation is precarious; there's no time to lose. Carlos takes a breath, pushes himself off the window and staggers forward. He just manages to grab the edge of the switchboard before he falls, clings to it.

"Carlos!" Cecil anxiously exclaims. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," Carlos gasps, dragging himself into Talbot's chair. The pale lines stand out like tendons on the back of his hands, shining visibly even under the bright fluorescents. He hunches over the switchboard, panting for breath.

"Are you really?" Kevin asks. "Because you don't quite look as fine as you could be..."

"He looks great," Aldis rasps. "Almost fully prepared. That orange—seed, was it?—made it that much more effective—"

"Shut up!" Cecil growls, changing the angle of his hold to force the executive onto his toes. Aldis wheezes, scrabbles ineffectually at Cecil's arm.

"I might be able to do something for him," Kevin says. "I've interviewed lots of vessels before..."

"Don't go near him!" With his free hand Cecil reaches for the chains hanging from the wall. The manacles he snaps around Aldis's wrists; the last length of chain he loops around the handle of the door, securing it shut, should Aldis manage to summon the guards on his helmet's comm link. It won't hold them for long, but hopefully long enough.

"But I just want to help," Kevin says, taking an ambling step towards Carlos, his hands still in his pockets. "We all want to help, don't you see, Cecil? Strex can be so very helpful, if you'd only let us..."

"I'm warning you," Cecil says, putting his hand to Aldis's throat.

"Warning me?" Kevin says, a lilting taunt, as he takes another step. Carlos struggles to find the energy to defend himself, but it's all he can do to keep his head up, to force his vision to focus on the equipment in front of him. He's too near his limits, and he needs all the strength he has left. 

Cecil squeezes, making Aldis gag. His voice is a throat-tearing snarl, wrath scraping it raw. "Your boss is at my mercy, and I have very little of that left."

"Hmm." Kevin extends his hand, brushes his fingertips along the fringe of Carlos's hair. Carlos shudders, flinches back from that caress that could be Cecil's but isn't; and Kevin's smile broadens. "Whatever you're going to do to Mr. Aldis, it might be worth it, for this..."

Cecil curses in an unknown tongue. He slams Aldis back, hard enough that his helmet hits the wall with a bang like a gunshot, and charges Kevin.

Kevin neither retreats nor dodges. Moving so smoothly it looks like slow motion, he pivots to grab Cecil's hand, and uses his momentum to flip him over into the floor. As Cecil struggles to stand, Kevin plants a bloodstained shoe on his breastbone and forces him down again. "Tsk, tsk," he scolds. "You shouldn't have abandoned your hostage; he was your best leverage. Don't tell me you dropped out of the Scouts before you earned your hostage-taking badge."

"Don't tell me you think the Desert Bluffs Scouts program holds a candle to Night Vale's!" Cecil returns.

Carlos doesn't watch, turning his back on them, on Aldis. Cecil will keep Kevin's attention as long as he can; he's relying on Carlos to manage his end.

The chains holding Aldis rattle as the executive pulls himself to his feet, croaks, "Kevin, enough wasting time. You've got a show; say your goodbyes and get back to work."

"I suppose I must," Kevin sighs. There's the unmistakable hiss of metal against leather, and Carlos looks back to see Kevin draw a knife, its serrated blade longer than his hand. "I didn't have a chance to properly greet you before," the other host says, leaning over Cecil. "It's _so_ nice to see you again, Cecil—"

"Kevin!" Carlos yells with all the power he can muster. "Stop!" He raises his arm, sleeve pulled down to display the glowing veins. "The Smiling God commands it!"

Kevin freezes in place, knife suspended in midair as he stares at Carlos.

"No, he doesn't," Aldis says. Fresh blood drips down the side of his chin from under his helmet. "That's just the vessel, Kevin—not God, not yet."

"Let him go, Kevin," Carlos insists. "I order you to."

"You know what our real God sounds like, Kevin," Aldis says. "You know how angry He'll be, if you're fooled by the hollow lies of a mere employee," and Kevin shudders, rictus smile fixed on his face.

Cecil tries to roll away. Kevin kicks him in the stomach, casually for how hard the blow is delivered, and advances with the knife.

"Don't," Carlos says desperately. He tries to stand, fails, collapsing back into the chair as his legs give way under him. He'd be no match for Kevin anyway; he's a scientist, fists and knives aren't how he fights. Reaching one hand behind his back for the switchboard and the plastic-wrapped equipment on it, he babbles, "Make him stop, Aldis!" The headphones aren't what he's looking for; he pushes them aside as he pleads, "You need Cecil, for this to work on Night Vale, you need him—"

"We can find another way." Aldis pulls his lips back from his shining polished teeth. "It's more important now for you to understand—for you to appreciate the power that's about to use you. Go ahead, Kevin, kill your double."

Lips stretched into their too-wide grin and hilt clenched in his bloody fist, Kevin raises the knife over Cecil, who lies on the floor curled around his belly, his arms wrapped over his head.

Groping blindly at the switchboard behind him, Carlos's fingers find the last couple of connections. He tears loose one wire, then the other—and the VN generator is unhooked from the switchboard.

He grabs the headphones with one hand as he flips the switch with the other.

Aldis turns his helmet back just in time to see the generator's lights blink on. The chains jangle as he lunges against them, hollering, "Cover your ears, Kevin!"

He's too slow. Kevin looks up, ears pricking, as Carlos jams on the noise canceling headphones, and clicks play on the dictaphone. 

Kevin's smile goes slack, relaxing into a grimace. It's impossible to read his eyes, but his cocked head has the puzzled air of someone trying to place a tune heard a long time ago. The knife dangles in his fist, over Cecil, lying on the floor at his feet, his hands clapped tightly over his ears.

Behind them, Aldis struggles against the chains, mouth gaping in shouts that Carlos can't hear through the headphones. Kevin pays him no attention, enthralled in the violet noise's siren song.

"Kevin," Carlos says, pushing himself to his feet. Through the headphones he catches a faint hum, or mumble, or maybe a rumbling, like distant thunder. He raises his voice over it. "I speak to you—I command you, as the Smiling God. Forget about worshipping me—forget about being a good employee. Forget this false happiness. Look at the light that is coming through me now," and he holds up his hands, and Kevin stares, transfixed, at the glowing network threaded through his flesh. "Remember what it is and what it can do—but forget that you fear it. Forget your loyalty to Strex and their sun and their Smiling God; just be loyal to—"

He gets no further; the rumbling roars in his ears, too loud for the headphones to block, and the pain surges, cutting off both words and breath.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, believe it or not - I know I don't! - there's only one chapter left after this. My eternal thanks to everyone who's made it this far, and who gave me the comments and kudos that kept me going, whenever I doubted whether it was worth it, if anyone would want to read it. This is now the longest fic I've ever managed to write, and I hope you'll follow it until the end, but either way I'm so glad you were along for this ride.

As Carlos curls over in agony, the headphones are dislodged, slipping from his ears. Over the rumbling he catches a fragment of something that's not quite music, without words or melody or rhythm—a curiously complex pattern that his scientist mind yearns to identify and catalog...

But that would be unproductive. His hands scrabble on the dictaphone, click the plastic button to stop the tape. The rumbling has subsided, or maybe he's acclimatizing to it; in the resultant silence he can hear his breathing, short harsh breaths steadying. The fire still burns in his veins, but the pain which all but paralyzed him before he now recognizes as inconsequential. He has work to do.

He grabs the desk, drags himself upright. Lines of white-hot flame coil between his fingers, around his wrists; he can feel the light flowing through his body, burning in every vein and capillary.

Cecil is kneeling up, cautiously lowering his hands from his ears as he stares at that glorious illumination. "Carlos?"

Kevin is also kneeling on the sticky floor, but his head is tilted back, gazing up at the ceiling. His expression is indescribable—not satisfaction, not contentment, not professional courtesy. His mouth is lax, lips slightly parted but his teeth strangely hidden behind them.

"Kevin!" Director Aldis turns his golden helm toward the radio hosts, braces against the handcuffs, chains rattling as he vainly tries to yank free. His voice grates with barely repressed rage. "I don't know what Carlos said to you, but it doesn't matter. Remember what you work for—you're a good man, a good employee. You know what you have to do."

Kevin snaps closed his mouth, gives himself a shake and rocks forward, back onto his feet. The knife is in his hand. "Oh, yes," he says, "I know."

"Don't touch him," Cecil growls, struggling to his feet, "if you hurt him—"

Kevin doesn't so much as glance at him. Raising the knife, he brings it down—across his own wrist. A shallow scratch, but deep enough that a line of blood wells up.

"Don't," Aldis orders, "Stop this at once—that's an executive order!"

Ignoring him as well, Kevin presses the flat of the blade against his skin, lets the blood drip down its edge onto the floor as he moves his wrist in a circle.

The light streaming through Carlos flickers like a wavering candle flame. He reels back, collapses in the chair. 

"Carlos?" Cecil asks anxiously, stumbling to his side. "Can you hear me? Are you all right?" He grabs for Carlos's hand, touches his face. Though the white lines are still inscribed across his skin, their glow has dulled.

"I told you I could help," Kevin says. He presses his fingers over his wrist. At his feet, the fresh blood shows vivid red against the floor's dried rust-brown, the drips forming a warped crimson sigil. "At least this much. They were our rites long before Strex patented the fluid technology."

"That was a mistake," Aldis snarls. "You think you can block our God Himself with your little tricks? That seal won't last a minute!"

Kevin turns his back on him, studying Carlos with that alarmingly indefinable expression. Carlos fights not to flinch under it. He glances down to the sigil at Kevin's feet, feeling his fingers throb where Cecil grips them. But the pale veins stay dim. "What did you do?"

"Really now, I think that's my question," Kevin says. "What did _you_ do to _me_?"

Carlos finally realizes what's wrong with his face—Kevin isn't smiling. There's a certainty in the lowering of his brows, the set of his jaw, the complete opposite of his usual vague cheer. It suits his features, in a disturbing way, since it's so much like Cecil's determination. "What do you remember?" Carlos asks him.

Kevin cocks his head. "Now that's the odd thing. If I think about it, I can remember all the many, many things a Voice of Desert Bluffs did for Strex...but I don't really recall being the Voice who did them. Although I'm pretty sure there hasn't been another one. Isn't that silly of me? Though not as silly as those things that Voice that must be me did. What a silly man, that Voice was!" and Kevin opens his mouth, lets go a high, giddy shriek that might have been mistaken for a giggle, if he were smiling.

"I'm sorry for that," Carlos says, "for everything Strex has done to you, and made you do to Desert Bluffs. And I'm sorry for what I did myself, now, and what I first came here to do. But you have a choice now—you can decide for yourself what to do next."

"Don't listen to him, Kevin!" Aldis cries. "Whatever he's done, you're still a Strex employee; we have you under contract. Remember Vanessa, do you really want—"

Kevin swings around with casual grace to chop his hand across Aldis's throat, angling the blow to avoid the golden helm. There's a sickening crack, and the executive's protest cuts off in a gagging cough.

"Please don't interrupt our guests," Kevin says. "We wouldn't want them to think we Desert Bluffs denizens are _rude_."

Aldis sags against the chains, wheezing, golden helm drooping down. "Now, what were you saying, Carlos?" Kevin says. "Because I have _plenty_ of ideas of what I'd like to do now, but..." and he casts a thoughtful look at Aldis, one finger tapping on the blade of his knife, "...most of them would take more time, and tools, than I have at the moment. And your timing was so delightfully serendipitous, I have an inkling that you'd like to offer a suggestion."

"We have a plan," Carlos says, "a way to stop Strex, and save both Night Vale and Desert Bluffs—but we need your help." He scoops up the dictaphone and the VN generator, stows them into the lab coat's broad pockets, then stands with Cecil's help. "We need to get to the radio tower on the roof, to transmit from it directly. Can you take us up there?"

Kevin pauses, studying them. The flat line of his mouth is unreadable.

Then he grins—brief and gleeful, a flash of unmandated teeth behind his blood-flecked lips. "Sure thing!"

He starts for the door, only to stop with his hand on the handle. "Oopsy..."

"What's wrong?" Cecil demands. "Go on, we don't have much time."

"I will, but first there's the teensy matter of the guards waiting outside. Mr. Aldis did tell them not to let anyone leave without his permission." Kevin glances back at Aldis's drooping figure. The director's breaths come in strangled rasps through his crushed larynx. "Perhaps I shouldn't have been quite so _genuine_ with him..."

"Can't you order them to stand down?" Carlos says. "You're the Voice of Desert Bluffs."

"Yes," Kevin says, "so I don't outrank a Strex director—oh, of course! Kevin, you goofball." He smacks himself lightly on the forehead, spins around and, before either Carlos or Cecil can react, grabs Carlos by the arm and pulls him toward the door. "All you need to do is smile at them."

"Smile?"

"Like this." Kevin twists his mouth open. "No, not like that—gape wider! Show off more teeth," and he sticks his fingers into Carlos's mouth, stretches his lips back from his gums. "Hmm, no, not quite shiny enough. Better make it more convincing." Still clutching Carlos's arm, he extends one leg toward the bloody sigil dripped on the floor.

"Wait!" Cecil moves to bar his double. "If you break the seal, then Carlos—"

"It wouldn't last for another minute anyway," Kevin says, and scrapes the toe of his shoe across the sigil, smearing it into a powerless stain. "This close to the scheduled report, the connection's getting too strong. But we can put off old Mirror-Tooth a bit longer. Since a perfect God demands a perfect vessel."

Kevin's expression doesn't change, so it's only the motion of his hand that Carlos sees out of the corner of his eye, the glitter of metal and crimson as Kevin's fist comes down.

"No!" Cecil hollers. He leaps forward, too late to stop Kevin from plunging his knife into Carlos's chest, just below his breastbone, level with his heart.

It enters cleanly, the brutally precise strike of an expert; but the serrated blade catches on Carlos's lab coat as Kevin pulls it free, tearing the yellow vinyl. Carlos staggers back into Cecil's arms as fresh pain explodes in his chest.

"Oh, Carlos!" Cecil clutches Carlos to him, glaring at Kevin. "You rank fiend, how could you—you said you'd help us—!"

"I am," Kevin says, idly spinning his knife between two fingers as he watches Carlos.

"You can't just stab people who aren't even from around here! Look at how his skin is glowing, that's not normal for Carlos, his glow is supposed to be metaphorical—"

"Cecil," Carlos gasps, grabbing Cecil's arm to steady himself. The fiery agony is waning. When he touches his chest he can feel the rip in the lab coat and the skin underneath, but not a drop of blood. Under his fingers the heated flesh is already knitting together, the nanomachinery closing the wound. "I—I think I'm all right..."

"See? No harm done. At least not by me," Kevin says. "And look at him!"

He waves at Carlos, at the latticework of light shining under his skin. Its radiance shimmers through his clothes, shining from the tear in his lab coat as if his heart is a second sun in his chest.

"No one can question that you're the Smiling God's vessel," Kevin says. "Now, _smile_!" and he opens the control room door.

"Director?" The guards in the hall turn, raising their stun-guns. "—What are you doing? Where's Mr. Aldis? You—"

Carlos steps into the hall. The lights in the corridor are red-hued, though the sirens have been muted; the scarlet light feels hot against his skin, the baked, taut tingle of a new sunburn. He raises his glowing hands, says, "Director Aldis is still inside, but we have important business elsewhere in the station. The Smiling God's business. Let us go."

The guards stare at him. The power shining through his flesh reflects in their wide eyes, glaring white points. Their mouths fall open with shock, or maybe it's terror, or else awe. "Yes—yes, sir," they gasp out, stumbling over their feet as they try to move aside without tearing their eyes from Carlos. "Is there anything we can do to help you?"

"You just keep guarding this door, as instructed," Kevin says. "The director doesn't want to be disturbed by anyone, got it?"

"Yes, sir," they acknowledge, still staring at Carlos.

"Thank you for your service to the company," Carlos tells the guards. "You're valuable members of our workforce; your contributions now will be noted in the next employee reviews."

"Yes, sir, thank you, sir!" One of the guards attempts a salute, gloved hand knocking against his riot helmet; the other dips his shoulders down in a bow. Then they both straighten their backs to rods and turn back to stand watch on the studio door.

Carlos's glowing heart is pounding, but he manages to walk steadily, keeping to a businesslike stride despite the urge to sprint down the red-lit halls. He can't tell how much of his panic is a rational response to the present circumstances, and how much is instinctual, an involuntary reaction to the station, his body remembering the dangers his mind has forgotten. With each step he expects the guards to recognize their mistake, expects Aldis to appear, or another executive.

He tenses upon hearing footsteps thudding behind him, walks faster. His chest burns and his breath is rasping in his ears—or maybe it's a lower sound, deeper, resounding through him. He can feel the floor vibrating under him with every footfall—

A hand falls on his arm. Carlos jerks free, ramming his elbow back, but his assailant dodges. Shouts, "Carlos, it's me!"

Cecil—of course, it's Cecil, and Kevin beside him. With their features muted by the scarlet lighting, the eerie parallels are even more pronounced; but Cecil's expression is drawn with concern and distress. "It's okay," he tells Carlos, "we have the halls to ourselves; everyone's either hiding in the studios or outside dealing with the attack. Besides, you don't know where to go—"

"Doesn't he?" Kevin says. "The roof access stairs are the next corridor over."

"In the Night Vale station, too," Cecil says, "but Carlos doesn't remember that—do you...?"

The hope in Cecil's eyes is so clear that it hurts Carlos, almost more than the nanotech boiling in his blood, to admit, "No, I don't remember the Night Vale station at all. I was just avoiding the guards."

"Oh." Cecil inhales with a visible effort to rally himself. "Well, you have! There's no one here but us now, so you can stop smiling, Carlos."

"I'm not smiling." But when Carlos reaches up to his face, he can feel the curving of his cheeks, the stretching of his lips. "I mean, I don't—I can't—"

"It's all right," Cecil says anxiously. "I've missed your smile, those amazing teeth of yours..."

"Aren't they _just_ ," Kevin murmurs. "So shiny, and straight, and white..."

" _You_ can look elsewhere!" Cecil snaps, such petty jealousy that Carlos almost laughs in spite of himself—almost, but the humor sticks in his throat, makes him cough.

Then he can't stop; his throat is too dry, as if there's sand or salt caught in it. He doubles over in the fit, hacking and wheezing until spots of unnamable colors flash before his eyes. Cecil wraps an arm around his shoulders to steady him as the jagged coughs rack his chest, and all through it Carlos can feel the aching pull of his curved-up lips.

There's a metallic taste on Carlos's tongue when it finally passes, red drops on his hand after he wipes it across his lips, though his mouth feels bone-dry.

"Come on," Cecil says.

Carlos squints up at him. His vision is haloed in sourceless, blinding light, brighter even than the nanomachinery infusing his flesh; he can barely see Cecil through it.

Cecil tugs at Carlos's arm to pull him up off the floor. "It's just a little further, you just have to get up—"

"No," Carlos says—only it's not him. He can't feel his mouth moving, though he can hear the words coming out of it, dripping off his blood-coated tongue, " _You_ should get down." 

His light-lined hand seizes Cecil's wrist, yanks him down so hard that Cecil falls on his rear with a yelp. "Kneel before me," Carlos's mouth demands. "Prostrate yourself utterly—sever your spinal cord in worship of the living face of perfection!"

"Carlos?" Cecil gasps.

"Not _quite_ ," Kevin says. He grabs Carlos in a headlock, wrestles him back from Cecil.

"Do something!" Cecil shouts, as Carlos struggles, twisting and bucking against his captor. "Another seal, hold it back, just a little longer—"

"Too late for that," Kevin says through gritted teeth. "I've got a better idea—while we're still stronger, let's lock him in a closet, let him do his corporatheologic thing, while we—"

"We're not leaving him!" Dodging the flailing limbs, Cecil takes Carlos's face into his hands, casting his shadow over him as he peers into his eyes. "Carlos, I know you're still there. I can see you, behind the smile. And you can see me—I'm here, with you. Whatever happens, I'll be here. So you have to stay with me, please...."

"C-Cecil?" Carlos wheezes. It's an effort to force the words out; his tongue is swollen and splitting in his parched mouth. But he's got control of it again. Has enough control of his hand to curl his fingers around Cecil's sleeve, say, "Sorry—I-I'm here. I'm all right."

"Technically true, depending on your definitions of 'right' and 'I'," Kevin mutters, loosening his grip. Carlos slumps to the floor, enervated muscles trembling.

"You will be," Cecil says. "Give me a hand, Kevin." He slings one of Carlos's arms over his shoulder and hauls him upright, while Kevin reluctantly takes position on his other side.

Carlos tries to focus on where they're going, but it's difficult to concentrate in the sweltering heat. Sweat trickles down his face, down his arms, only to evaporate when it crosses the glowing lines traced over his skin. He wonders what it feels like to evaporate, solid melting into liquid and then disseminating into gas, molecules spreading further and further apart until any cohesion among them is lost.

Cecil's hand grips his shoulder, his thumb brushing Carlos's neck over his lab coat's collar. Carlos tries to twist away, tries to shrug him off. "Don't, it's too hot...." But Cecil's hand doesn't shift, and doesn't melt, either, remaining cool and soothing against Carlos's skin.

The sunlight rumbles—was sunlight always so loud? Its thunder is louder than the crack of lightning, shaking the very ground, so he trips and stumbles. His feet drag on the floor as he's pulled along, leaving black streaks, like plowing furrows in sand.

Then they stop. Carlos fights to catch his breath. Colors blur before his eyes—has he forgotten their names, or did he never know them?

"Carlos," Cecil says. It takes Carlos a moment to recognize his name. But the baritone voice resonates against the rumbling, not higher or lower but an inversion, countering every peak and depth to cancel it out.

Carlos blinks, slowly brings into focus the keypad Kevin is punching numbers into. "I borrowed an executive emergency code," Kevin is saying, "but then they upped my dosage again, so I never got around to—oh, goody!" With the final number, the pad lights up green, in vibrant contrast to the sullen reds of the emergency lights, to the yellow-white power radiating from Carlos. 

The door beside the keypad swings open. As if in response, the light within Carlos flares, revealing a narrow spiral staircase, coiling upwards. 

"The roof is in the full sun, this time of morning," Kevin points out. "The real sun—it's going to be hard on him. The Smiling God doesn't like false idols, or true ones; accept no substitutions, exchanges, or refunds."

"We have to go," Cecil says. "The broadcasting antennae is up there."

"I-I can't." Carlos is hardly sure he's spoken, his voice thready and slurred with exhaustion. He doesn't have the strength left to lift his feet; it's only thanks to Cecil's arm around him that he's still standing. He fumbles at his lab coat, pulls out the VN generator and the dictaphone and shoves them at Cecil. "I can't make it any further. You'll have to do the rest alone, Cecil."

Cecil takes the devices, but replies, "No," calm and quiet and all the more irrefutable for it. "Not alone."

"You have to—Night Vale needs you."

"And I need _you_ ," Cecil says. Pocketing the equipment, he shifts Carlos's weight to turn them closer, cups Carlos's cheek. The coolness of his fingers aches against Carlos's scorched skin. "This time we go together. We just have to get you to the roof, you said—"

"That was only a hypothesis," Carlos says. Sweat steams from his white-hot skin, though Cecil still won't let go. "A guess. If I'm wrong—it's coming, Cecil. I can feel it, I can hear it, I can see it. Just leave me and go, there's no time to waste—"

It's the wrong thing to say; he knows it as soon as he sees the smile that breaks across Cecil's face. Not a Strex employee's smile; his joy and confidence is so manifest that Carlos can almost feel them himself, even through the throbbing heat and pain. "There's no time at all," Cecil says, "since time isn't real anyway; as a scientist you should remember that much. Now let's go." He puts his arms around Carlos, heaves him over his shoulder with a casual strength unexpected in his average frame. "Come on, Kevin."

Thrown over Cecil's shoulder, Carlos couldn't see clearly even if he weren't blinded by the light glowing around him—not the bloody red of the emergency lighting, but a pure brilliance that fills the air. That fills him, his blood itself illuminated, light replacing oxygen in his lungs. He can barely see himself, can barely remember there's any of himself to see. His skin is transparent, his body insignificant to what's within it.

It's so bright that when they open the door and climb out onto the roof, into the sunlight, Carlos can't comprehend it. It's like finding a temperature twice as cold as absolute zero, like finding a number that's twice infinity. He was ready for more pain, but this is so much worse. How can he exist, how can Cecil exist, how can anything exist, in a universe so fundamentally impossible? 

He must have only imagined it. Imagined that he ever existed. The voice in his ear is only a hallucination, a dream. Those syllables it's repeating, _Carlos, Carlos_ , are meaningless noise, audio flotsam adrift in the light's rumbling torrent.

His own irrelevant lips are moving with incomprehensible words, like being an infant again, babbling in ignorant imitation of his parents' speech. No human mind, however educated or intelligent, can comprehend the awesome glory pouring through these veins; no human language can properly express it. 

A hand claps over His mouth, in a vain effort to stifle His words. As if such glaring truth could be silenced. He thrashes, bites and kicks to free His body. Poor and unworthy a vessel though it might be, the light flowing through its veins gives strength; He breaks free of those who would hold Him back.

One of His oppressors has a blade, glittering silver in the sunlight. But no gleam of metal is as perfect a reflection as that cast by His light. He grabs the knife, claims that false mirror for His own in a spray of red blood.

The other men are both shouting, more of those meaningless syllables; the scream tearing from His vessel's throat is louder still. They quiet under its onslaught, falling back. The one who had the knife is bleeding again, red dripping through the fingers clasped over his arm.

It's the same blood that was used to—if only briefly—forestall this apotheosis; it has its own delicious power, but it's tainted, soured by immorality. This Voice's contract has been broken, his faith compromised. Of no more use to the company. And the other one is only a heathen candidate, yet to be hired.

Conversion of the faithless is not His job; He has more important things to do than micromanage. He turns away, abandoning those lost souls to their purposeless existence as He looks out across the roof, surveying His domain, this town dedicated to Him. It's a rare opportunity to view it through a vessel's eyes; there's a little time left until the report's deadline.

The buildings rising up around the radio station are worthy of His attention, each one a temple of worship, economical and profitable, glass and steel shining in the sunlight. The streets below are filled with throngs of loyal employees congregating for their morning shifts.

Except there are more than employees in the streets, this morning. Among the bright suits and regulated smiles are others that should not be there. Giants, masked and armed with weapons longer than His vessel is tall, fell scores of StrexCorp forces with every blow. Weaving between their heavy feet are smaller figures, shorter than any employee since the revised child labor laws are still being pushed through, wielding slingshots and heavy tomes.

And worst of all, beings of dazzling darkness and vulgar wings, towering over the faithful to smite them down. 

Bellows and battle cries echo up through the buildings' steel canyons. Strex's workers are prevailing, of course; His followers outnumber these pathetic malcontents, and are more experienced besides in the skills of blood and pain. But it's chaotic, inefficient. A waste of a perfectly good workday.

Outraged, He opens his mouth, sucking in air to fill His vessel's lungs for a howl that will carry across the besieged streets and rally His employees—

"So you're the Smiling God?"

Those syllables, He recognizes, even in a heathen's mouth. Though it's not the vessel's proper designation, He turns back.

"If you're so powerful, do you know what this is?" The heathen Voice is standing within the chain-link cage that protects the station's broadcast antenna. Behind the fence he holds up a mess of wires and circuitry. A primitive, ugly device, not the economical, marketable purity of holy technology; but He witnessed enough of its workings in the control room to presume their aim now.

"We're almost about to broadcast," and the Voice nods up at the metal tower stretching up high over his head, and then down at his feet, where the traitor crouches, fiddling with a microphone. "Not your quarterly report, but ours. And then you'll have no place here."

It's an empty threat; one or two individuals are nothing compared to divine corporate might. But they're losing valuable minutes of production to this unprofitable nonsense. Enough is enough. Properly prepared as it has been, this vessel has the strength to handle such a minor job.

He grins with His vessel's white-toothed mouth, raises the bloody knife as He shapes those lips into inefficient speech. "Blasphemers! You would have silenced me, but I'll silence you instead, you who would disrupt my employees' worship."

"And how are you going to do that?" the traitor Voice taunts, from within their flimsy cage. "We've padlocked the gate."

Smiling, He grabs the fence's chain-link in His vessel's bare hands, and rips the woven mesh apart. The steel screams as it's wrenched asunder, and He enters through the gap.

The traitor Voice drops his tools and flees. But the heathen Voice just stands there, backed against the antenna's steel and concrete base, holding the profane device behind his back. His eyes are large with the realization of his fate. "Stay—stay back," he gasps. "It's me—you know me—you don't want to do this. Fight it, I know you can—"

Deep within His vessel's physical form, the heart skips a beat, arrhythmic and inefficient. And futile besides, as the technology in His veins would continue to flow even if the heart stopped, for as long as the vessel is required. He smiles wider, until He feels the sting of blood at the corners of His vessel's mouth. It's important to love one's work, and He enjoys His own job as much as the most well-maintained employee.

He extends His hand, wraps His fingers around the heathen Voice's neck. The Voice doesn't raise a hand to defend himself. His lips, set in a vilely flat line, only shape those senseless syllables, one more time, _Carlos_.

Grinning in triumph, He raises the knife over the Voice's chest, savoring the instant before He brings it down and ends this sacrilege—

Only to stumble. In His vessel's chest, the heart skips again. There is a tingling numbness creeping down the legs, up the arms. He feels the knife slip and tries to tighten the vessel's fingers, but the knife slides through them like ice melting to water. He hears it clink dully on the concrete under His feet.

"Kneel before me—pick up that blade, that I may terminate your imperfect self!" He tries to roar, but the vessel's voice wavers and cracks.

The heathen Voice raises his hand, though not to pry the fingers from his throat. Instead he gently caresses the vessel's head, fingers combing through the curling hair. He's still staring into the vessel's eyes, but the intensity of his gaze is not the proper terror, but a disgusting tenderness.

"Remove your profane hands from My vessel," He demands, but His voice is as unsteady as the heart thudding in His chest. "I am your God, and you—you will—"

Blackness, dark and impossible, drops across His vision. He staggers, lurches and begins to fall—

Cecil catches him, lowers him carefully to the concrete, cradling his head. "Carlos," he repeats, "Carlos, can you hear me?"

"Yes," Carlos says. He squints upwards, struggling to see through the darkness. His vision returns slowly, dim and drained of color, as if he's in an unlit room instead of outside on a clear morning. He shivers, for all that he can feel the sun against his skin. "I can— _I_ can. It's me, Cecil."

"Oh, thank the Masters—thank science! It worked! You were right—of course you were right." Cecil is smiling, but his voice is thick, hoarse with tears. "We just had to get you near the antennae," and he tilts his head up at the emaciated metal tower looming above them.

"Yes—yes, but you should get back now." Carlos's own throat is raw. He pants for breath as he gasps out, "It's not safe, this close."

Radio waves are generally harmless to human physiology, but such close proximity to a strong transmitter exposes you to a broader spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. Which was the point; but Cecil has been nearer, for longer than Carlos.

Though Cecil doesn't seem overly bothered; all his concern is for Carlos, as he helps him back from the antenna, sits him down on the cinderblock base, propped against the torn chain-link fence.

Kevin is back kneeling by the antennae's main transmission line. Ignoring the bruise on his cheek and the blood dripping from his slashed arm, he plugs the last lines into his microphone. Cecil leaves Carlos to crouch beside his double, working in tandem to hook up the VN generator, his fingers moving with the nimble certainty of a pianist.

Carlos blinks down at his own hands. The network of glowing veins across his skin has dulled to bleached lines, like crisscrossed scars, but his hands tremble when he tries to lift them from his lap.

There's a roaring in his ears, though it doesn't throb like the light's rumbling. At first he mistakes it for the rush of blood, or what passes for it in his veins now; but then he recognizes voices in it, shouting—too distant and too many to distinguish any words, only emotions: terror, rage, ferocity.

Craning his neck, Carlos can look over the edge of the station's roof, down at the embattled streets below. If angels aren't real, then they imitate existence very effectively. Though even their lofty figures are dwarfed by the masked giants—when Dana had mentioned having other friends, Carlos had assumed she meant other humans. His mistake.

And while he can't identify Tamika from this distance, he recognizes her training in all the children running amuck among the StrexCorp employees. "I asked Dana and Tamika to make a distraction," he says, dazed. "That's all..."

"They must have decided an all-out assault would be distracting," Cecil says.

It appears to be a sound strategy. Though even with Carlos's limited experience in warfare, it's obvious the Night Vale forces are terribly outnumbered. As he watches, still more Strex employees file from the surrounding buildings, yellow-suited, with the glittering, metallic stares and smiles of supervisors. And while he's not sure their inspiration rods would work on angels, Tamika's warriors are still children.

He jerks at the first reedy, high-pitched scream that carries up to them from the street, faint but unmistakable. He doesn't say anything, but Cecil murmurs, "I know—but we're almost ready."

Then Cecil looks out off the roof, frowning. "Though will this work, if everybody's too busy fighting to hear the broadcast?"

"They'll hear it," Kevin says. "Anyone who doesn't have audio implants will get it over the street speakers."

"Street speakers—but there are Night Vale citizens down there, too!" Cecil protests. "If I tell them to forget Night Vale—"

"You won't," Carlos says. "You're not going to be speaking to them—Kevin will."

"Oh?" Kevin blinks, then straightens up, hands tightening around his microphone. "Oh, yes, I will!"

Cecil glowers at his erstwhile double, clutching the VN generator, his brow lowered in suspicion. "But if he tells the Night Vale citizens to forget about Strex—to forget the danger they're fighting against—"

"Are you saying you don't trust me, Cecil?" Kevin smiles—not the placid shine of a handbook-perfect smile, but a feral grin, his teeth sharp behind his bloodstained lips. "How clever of you! But I'm not doing this for your darling Night Vale. Desert Bluffs is my community, and I'll do whatever I must, for its sake. Even work with you."

"It's the only way, Cecil," Carlos says. He's struggling for breath, the air he gulps failing to fill his lungs. "To deal with Strex, to save its employees—"

"What about saving Night Vale?" Cecil says. "Your experiments, risking your life, it was all for Night Vale, not for Strex, or Desert Bluffs! This is that thing in you talking, that Smiling God—"

"No," Carlos says. "It's me, Cecil, I'm all that's left. And I came here to save Night Vale, and that's what we'll do. But the people here in Desert Bluffs, everyone working for Strex, they have the right to live, too, to love, to be happy. To remember what that even means."

Cecil frowns. "Or do you believe I have no right to my own life?" Carlos asks him. "Because I'm a Strex employee, too—an Employee of the Month, even," and he touches his neck. The triangular badge is cool to the touch, and loose; at the brush of his fingers, the thin wafer of metal separates from his skin, tumbles to the ground with an insignificant ding.

"But you never wanted to work for them," Cecil says. "You didn't know what you were doing—"

"I made myself lose my memories," Carlos says. "I didn't want to, but it was for Night Vale, and I'd do it again. That's more of a choice than most of Strex's employees have. If you can forgive me for that, if you can forgive me for everything I did for Strex after..." His breath catches. "Or maybe you can't—maybe you're right and I don't deserve forgiveness, or love—"

"No!" Cecil cries, and then, more calmly, "No, you do. Of course you do. You're right." He takes Carlos's trembling hand, rests his cheek against it, his skin warm against Carlos's knuckles. "Everyone should have a chance for this. Whatever they are or have done." 

Cecil nods at Kevin. The other host readies his microphone, as Cecil picks up the dictaphone and pushes play.

With the equipment wired directly into the radio tower, they can't hear the transmission itself, except its faintest echo though the public speakers on the city streets, a distant, mysterious sound. 

Instead, the broadcast shows in its effect on those streets, as all the combatants, StrexCorp employees and Night Vale residents alike, momentarily pause in their battle. Arms raised to deliver blows lower; hands gripping weapons and throats loosen. An eerie hush descends, as everyone stops to listen.

Everyone in Desert Bluffs is conditioned to pay close attention to the radio. Even so, the violet noise's neurological effects are limited; this peace won't last more than a moment. But for that moment, all of Desert Bluffs is entirely engaged.

And Kevin, with his years of experience of a broadcasting professional, has excellent timing; he starts speaking into his microphone a split second before Carlos signals him. His voice is calm but lively, reassuring in a way that Cecil's foreboding baritone never could be. It's sunlight instead of shadows—but not the Smiling God's glaring, perfect brilliance; instead it's a blood-red sunrise, the crimson of a desert dawn, long rays burning away the morning mists.

"Desert Bluffs," Kevin says, "Oh, my Desert Bluffs, good morning! Kevin here, and it's a wonderful day, in our town which hasn't been wonderful in such a long while. For so long, StrexCorp has been part of Desert Bluffs—for too long, Desert Bluffs has been part of StrexCorp. And I know it's seemed like such a good idea, such a good thing to be part of. But the truth is, StrexCorp used us. They used our buildings, and our citizens—they used our productive natures and our sunny dispositions and our blood, and we can't have that, now can we.

"I'm talking to all of StrexCorp's employees, everybody in Desert Bluffs, who lived here before and who lives here now. Listen to me, your friend Kevin, the Voice of Desert Bluffs. Listen to me very carefully—maybe the last time you'll want to listen to me, but that's okay, as long as you hear me now.

"Desert Bluffs, forget about being good Strex employees. Forget the pills they made you swallow; forget the contracts they made you sign. Forget StrexCorp's authority, and remember your own. Don't forget what StrexCorp has done—so many, many awful things that they'll have to answer for. Remember those things, and remember, too, what they made you do—so you know what to return to them. Because we always repay our debts, don't we, Desert Bluffs? That's just good manners.

"So remember everything you've done, but forget that Strex could have you do any of it again. Remember that our god exists to serve us, and forget how it compelled us to serve. Remember who you are, people of Desert Bluffs—remember that you are magnificent, and terrifying, and free; and forget that you ever were made to believe that you weren't!"

The tape clicks softly as Cecil stops it.

In the streets below the radio station, the uncanny, listening silence has been broken by a rising tumult. At Kevin's final words, it crescendos—shouts and wails as violent as any battle, a cacophony of stricken, furious protest.

From the rooftop, Carlos can see individuals among the crowd falling to the pavement. Some kneel, clutching their heads, their hearts; others press their hands over their ears, as if to block out their own keening.

Up and down the street, impossibly tall figures raise their shields and darkly luminescent beings stretch their impossible wings, shading those tormented people from the rising sun. Tamika's young soldiers crouch next to the Strex employees, patting their backs with the awkward confusion of a child trying to console an adult.

Not everyone is so affected. Carlos sees one figure on the street directly below, face gleaming like polished sheet metal as they raise their inspiration rod over a crouching child. 

But before the blow can fall, three figures in yellow suits charge into the supervisor, bowling them over in a flurry of hammering fists.

Carlos's eyes are stinging. His chest is so tight that he can only breathe shallowly; his tingling limbs are going numb. He struggles to lift his arms, fails.

"Carlos!" Cecil's voice is tremulous, not with fear but burgeoning hope. "Oh, Carlos, look, it's working! We should get down there, to help everyone—find Tamika, and Dana if we can, and—"

"Yes," Carlos says. He manages a nod, then lets his head fall back against the fence, the chain-link rattling. "You should go..."

Cecil glances up at the antenna. "Is it safe to bring you further from the transmitter? Or could you be taken again?"

"No, the connection is closed," Carlos says. The darkness encroaching on his vision is reassuring, the opposite of that holy light. "The proximity to the transmitter doesn't matter anymore; the EM field's already destroyed them all."

"Destroyed what?" Cecil strokes his thumb across the back of Carlos's hand. The white veins have faded almost to invisibility; his skin aches, but it's like the sting of a bad sunburn. "Something Strex put in you?"

"In my blood," Carlos confirms. "Or, _is_ my blood. Was my blood. Nanotechnology—but such tiny electronics are hard to shield from electromagnetic radiation. Getting that close to a transmitting tower fried their circuitry."

"My clever Carlos." Cecil takes Carlos's arm, pulls it over his shoulder to drag him upright. "So now they're all gone?"

"Yes," Carlos says. He doesn't resist Cecil's maneuvering, couldn't if he wanted to. His head hangs down, too heavy for him to lift. "They're all shut down." Somewhere between eighty-five to ninety percent of his blood's volume, if his estimates are correct.

There's a circle of damp warmth growing on his chest, under the yellow lab coat; the wound from Kevin's knife is no longer sealed. He wonders if the fluid seeping from his veins is red or metal gray. The blood loss is practically incidental; even if he were uninjured, all the living blood cells left in him can't provide enough oxygen to sustain his brain, his other organs.

He thought it would be worse than this. More frightening, more painful. After everything he's gone through, everything he's done, it seems unbalanced, for it to end so easily. "It's all right, Cecil," Carlos says. "It doesn't hurt, really."

"It doesn't...Carlos?" Cecil's voice sharpens with sudden realization. He shifts against Carlos, jostles him as if to wake him up. Carlos isn't asleep, though, and his limbs are too weighted to move. He slumps, and Cecil catches the rest of his weight, lowers him to the ground. "Carlos, what's wrong?" Cecil tugs at his lab coat. Carlos can't stop him from pushing it aside, though he groans at the dull pain when Cecil presses a hand over his chest. "You're bleeding—Kevin, he's bleeding!"

"Hmm, I suppose he would be," Kevin says, "with the nanotech not holding him  
together anymore."

"So what do we do?!"

"Nothing."—That isn't Kevin's voice. The glee in it is as vicious as Kevin's, but it's as hard and cold as metal, not Kevin's crimson desert dawn.

Carlos rocks back his head, peers down the long dark tunnel of his vision to see gold—Huck Aldis's golden helm, gleaming in the sunlight.

Under the opaque shield, the senior executive's mouth stretches wide, baring teeth even brighter than the helmet. Faint bruising mottles his throat and his voice rasps, but its confidence is as unshakable as ever. "It's too late for him. But maybe not for you." 

Aldis has a gun in one hand, an inspiration rod in the other. Blood spatters mar his suit's neat pinstripes. "I didn't listen to your broadcast, but whatever you said must've been good, to cause this mess." The executive swaggers forward, his lip curling as he surveys the chaos in the street below. "I don't know how many executives are going to survive your little stunt, but there will be a place beside me in the new order. For whichever of you has more ambition now."

"A place?" Kevin's voice is blood-hot, desert-hot. Standing, his hand is at Carlos's eye-level, glittering—not gold but silver; his dagger, clenched in his fist behind his back. "Is that guaranteed?"

Cecil has no weapon, no defense. His arms around Carlos don't let go, though he must see Kevin's knife.

Aldis's smile broadens. "I'll see to it personally," he says. "For you, and for your city—Desert Bluffs will be rewarded for your company loyalty."

"What a _tempting_ offer," Kevin says. "Really, you have excellent timing, I was just about to go looking for you..."

Then he's in motion, and maybe it's the oxygen deprivation confusing Carlos's senses, or maybe Kevin can actually move that fast. There's no time, no warning to defend against his attack.

Aldis doesn't have a chance, even with his rod and gun. Before he can trigger either, Kevin has already thrust his dagger between the executive's ribs. 

Aldis chokes, staggers backwards. Kevin catches the falling executive in a parody of an embrace. He pulls his blade free with a practiced twist and the blood wells up, so bright red that it almost seems afire. "By the way," he croons in Aldis's ear, "I forgot to say so before— _I quit_."

The last thing Carlos sees is the executive's head falling back, gaping smile split wide open. He hears the golden helm crash to the concrete, but his vision's gone dark, or perhaps his eyelids have closed; he doesn't have the energy left to figure out which.

"Carlos," Cecil says, "Carlos, please, you have to stay awake—"

"Sorry," Carlos says, or tries to. He can't quite hear his own voice, and his tongue is thick and clumsy in his mouth.

But Cecil's breath catches, his arms tightening around Carlos. "No," he says, "don't, there's nothing to be sorry for. You did everything you could for Night Vale. Everything else, it wasn't your fault, you didn't know anymore..."

It's not only that, Carlos wants to say. He's sorry for what he did for Strex, of course; but he's sorry for this, too, for not telling Cecil what bringing him to the antenna would do.

He hopes Cecil won't blame himself; he hopes Cecil will understand that this was a choice, too. That Carlos wanted to be here, not burned and broken under the Smiling God.

He hopes that Dana will be able to tell Cecil. He hopes that Dana will forgive him, too, for not saying goodbye when he could have. For not being there when she makes it back to Night Vale. And Nisa, when she finds her way home as well, to her family who is now freed from Strex.

"Just stay with me, Carlos," Cecil says, soft and sorrowing. Carlos has heard him sound like this before, on the radio, four months after he came to Desert Bluffs. That broadcast was only a few weeks ago, though it feels like much longer. He hadn't known who Cecil was mourning, then. "Please, you have to, you have to come home," and Carlos doesn't remember Night Vale, and even the dreams of their house he's mostly forgotten; but he feels Cecil's arms around him, and knows Cecil's mistaken. He's already home.

Everything is going dark, a peaceful, blissfully painless blackness. It's not like falling asleep; Carlos is drifting, but not down into his subconscious—up instead, out of himself, evaporating into the sunny sky that he can no longer see. He breathes in, and knows it's for the last time.

On that cusp, he realizes that he's felt this once before, a year ago. He shouldn't remember, but he does—the smell of earth, bursts of light. Tiny explosions smashing across his chest, and he was falling.

The voice in his ears now was in his ears then, too, Cecil's baritone shadows speaking his name, as no one else had ever said it. And Carlos had wanted—had finally realized what he wanted—and it was too late, except that time doesn't work in Night Vale anyway, so if he could just have one more night, one more month, one more year...

_After everything that happened, I just..._

Though he can't feel the corners of his lips tug up, he knows he's smiling, not an employee's regulated smile, but real happiness.

"I'm glad I got to see you again," Carlos says, with his last breath.

He doesn't hear Cecil's reply.


	32. Chapter 32

Carlos didn't think it would be possible for him to dream anymore. Or to feel anything. He's never been happier to be proven wrong.

Sometimes he dreams he's still working for Strex, walking down hall after identical hall, trying to get to his assigned lab, but none of the doors with their glowing red locks open for him.

Sometimes he dreams about being back in college, or high school, or grade school before that—sitting at a little metal and plastic desk, and all the other children are laughing at him because he can't remember the answer he raised his hand to give. He was sure he knew it but now his mind's a blank, and when he looks down he's only wearing his boxer shorts with the UFO print.

But sometimes, in the best dreams, he's somewhere else. Climbing onto a low wooden stage to address a crowd more interested in their plates of baked goods than his introduction, but his nervous grin gives way to genuine excitement as he looks out across the upturned faces and sees one man smiling back at him.

Or he's walking down a dusty sidewalk in the sporadic shade of black, curiously symmetrical tree trunks, hand in hand with Cecil. Or working in a lab with old equipment and dented furniture, warning Cecil which of the bubbling vials not to touch. He doesn't know most of the other people or places in these dreams, but they're his favorites anyway.

Now Carlos is dreaming that he's lying in a bed—not a bed he recognizes, a king-sized mattress softer than he'd ever willingly subject his back to, with luxuriously silky sheets in vivid chartreuse and magenta. 

Cecil is here as well—Cecil is always here, in all his dreams of Night Vale. Though he's not usually asleep, awkwardly slouched in a straight-backed wooden chair, with his head nodding at an angle that makes Carlos's neck ache in sympathy. Cecil is softly snoring, a sound Carlos recognizes from the radio, the broadcast when Cecil passed out.

Such an innocent, intimate sound, those quiet rasps. And they mean that Cecil is here, with him, safe and well. Carlos likes this dream.

It doesn't last, though; they never do. His eyes slip closed, and he slides from the dream, back into the oblivion between.

 

* * *

 

The next time Carlos dreams of being in that strange bed, Cecil is awake. He's pacing at the foot of the bed with a cell phone pressed to his ear, saying, "I know—I promise, I'll be back at the station by—"

Then he turns back and sees Carlos sitting up. The phone drops from his fingers, thumps on the carpet. "You're awake!"

"Not exactly," Carlos says, since he's only dreaming, after all.

"Do—do you know who I am?" Cecil asks. At his feet, the phone squawks, then goes silent. "Who you are?"

"I'm Carlos, I'm a scientist," Carlos says. "You're Cecil, the Voice of Night Vale. My boyfriend." Or is he yet? Carlos wonders when this memory originally happened, if it was early in their acquaintance.

Cecil doesn't give him a chance to ask. He trips over his own feet in his dive for the bed, so that he literally falls into Carlos's arms. He's babbling a stream of Carlos's name and profuse gratitude to unpronounceable entities, and it's all Carlos can do to hold him, not daring to speak or breathe or so much as close his eyes, for fear of ending this dream.

On the floor, the phone starts up again with a strident trumpet fanfare. Cecil groans, disengages one arm enough to reach down and sweep up the phone. He says into it, "Sorry, can't talk now, he woke up!" and tosses it back on the floor.

Then he turns back to Carlos. "How do you feel?"

"Fine," Carlos says. He nestles his head against Cecil's chest, relaxes back into his embrace. "Nothing hurts now." That's the advantage of dreams. Or maybe of death. 

"Good," Cecil says, wrapping both arms back around him.

As Cecil's fingers comb through his hair—it's longer than Carlos is used to it being, but shorter than it is in most of his dreams of Night Vale—Carlos asks, "Our first date—was it at an Italian restaurant?"

Cecil's caressing hand stills. "Gino's," he says, after a brief, breathless pause.

"And we broke a window? And then there were...trees?"

"Yes!" Cecil sits up enough to look Carlos in the eyes. The smile in his voice is even wider than the one on his face. "Oh, it was wonderful."

"How did it end?"

Cecil sighs, soft and utterly blissful. "You kissed me. Like this," and he lowers his head, presses his lips to Carlos's, gently, almost shyly, almost reverently.

It's impossibly sweet and not enough. When Cecil pulls back, Carlos lunges for him, curling his fingers through Cecil's own hair, drawing Cecil's mouth back to his.

Cecil enthusiastically reciprocates, arms tightening around Carlos as he rolls them over so Carlos is on top, their legs entangled. And now it's a totally different dream, one like Carlos hasn't had in far too long. Cecil's hands stroke down his back, as he pushes his thigh up between Carlos's. Carlos slides against him, the heat of that friction throbbing through him, nothing like Strex's awful light and pain. He thought he would've lost this, too, but his dreamed body responds to Cecil's as ardently as if he still has blood and breath and a beating heart.

—At least until Cecil murmurs, "Carlos, I'm not sure this..."

Carlos yanks his hands back from Cecil's belt—snakeskin, or maybe alligator; what species of reptile has plaid scales? "I—I'm sorry, I didn't—"

Cecil smiles. "It's not that I don't want to, dear Carlos, not at all!" and he arches up against Carlos at an angle that leaves no room for doubt. "It's just, you used to prefer it if there were no active cameras..."

Carlos jerks. "Cameras?"

Cecil points his chin at the corner of the ceiling. Rather than Strex's subtle black lenses, the security camera is bulky and obvious as it slowly rotates in its sweep of the room. "Unless you've changed your mind?" Cecil says, more than a little eagerly. "The secret police are pretty discreet, I'm sure they wouldn't do anything so gauche as post it online, at least not without password protection—"

"The police..." Carlos moves off of Cecil, kneeling back on his heels on the bed, and for the first time looks at his surroundings.

The room is no more familiar to him than the bed, gray cement walls and a plain wooden door with an old-fashioned brass knob. The oriental rug is spread over poured concrete. There are no windows, but a large flatscreen TV is mounted on the wall opposite the bed, and a few tattered posters paper over the cement—a vision chart using an unfamiliar script, and a couple black-and-white head-shots of an older actor Carlos almost recognizes.

"...This isn't our bedroom," Carlos says, somewhere between a question and a sincere hope.

"No," Cecil confirms. "It's one of the best suites in the abandoned mineshaft, though!"

"The mineshaft?"

Cecil sits up, takes Carlos's hands in his. "I'm so sorry; I argued, I petitioned—but after everything that happened, everyone's still nervous. So until you were awake to explain...no one will doubt you once they talk to you, who could! But while we were waiting, this was safer."

Carlos hears his breathing quicken, closes his eyes and inhales deeply as he concentrates. The cement walls don't look any further away when he opens his eyes; but not that much nearer, either. And this is just a dream anyhow. He doesn't ask how deep underground they are, instead just says, "So this is Night Vale."

Cecil nods, squeezing his hands. "We came back with Tamika and her army and everyone else—everyone from Night Vale. Or everyone who we could find; more people have been showing up since. Some of them didn't remember they were from here, even after the broadcast, but it's been coming back to them..."

Tamika's army, the broadcast—that all dates from after he went to Desert Bluffs. So how could he be dreaming it now? Carlos swallows. "I was in this, um, mineshaft, before? Or you were?"

"Well, I've been held before, civic duty has its price, you know—but never in one of the presidential suites!" Cecil says. "This is my first time seeing one, it's quite nice, isn't it? And the secret police are so happy to have someone to incarcerate, I think they were feeling a bit inadequate, after seeing the StrexCorp prison camp firsthand—"

"Cecil," Carlos says, and Cecil shuts his mouth to listen attentively. "Cecil, this is a dream, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're just dreaming you're here now, talking with me," Carlos says. "Aren't you? Because—because I can't actually be awake, can I?" His fingers tighten around Cecil's, hard enough that it would hurt in reality, though Cecil doesn't wince, or try to pull away.

Though he does frown, as he says, "Yes, you can be awake—you are now. Finally!"

His throat is dry, Carlos realizes. There's no pain, but there's a little pressure in his bladder, a twinge in his lower back when he straightens up. The odd little uncomfortable details you never notice in dreams. "So you're saying is this real? That I'm really here, with you?"

"Yes," Cecil says. "Yes, you're really here, and yes, it's real. I'm, oh, at least eighty percent sure. Maybe eighty-four percent—eighty-four is a good scientific number, isn't it?"

"Absolutely." Carlos gulps back the hysterical giggle bubbling up in his throat. "It's twice forty-two, that's as scientific as you can get. Cecil, _how_?"

"How?"

"How am I here—how am I alive? The nanomachinery had crashed, and according to all my calculations I couldn't survive without it."

"No," Cecil says. "From what I understood, you couldn't have." Carefully he extricates his hands from Carlos's, folds them in his lap and squares his shoulders to face him. "Carlos, I'm sorry. It was your death, and your right to it, after all you did. But I—I couldn't. Not again, not so soon after finding you were alive. And you must've guessed that, since you didn't tell me what bringing you to the antenna would do—but that doesn't make it any better, that you knew I'd be so selfish. I promise, if it's what you really want, then I...I'll..."

" _Want_?" Carlos stares. "'Cecil, I never wanted to die—but it was the only way to escape the Smiling God. I didn't tell you because I couldn't do that to you, not again. You'd let me risk my life before, going to Desert Bluffs, and then you lost me... I'm the one who's sorry, I'm so sorry, Cecil, for putting you through that, twice—"

"It's all right!" Cecil takes Carlos's hands again, lifts them to his mouth to kiss each finger in grateful benediction. "Everything's all right, since you're here."

Carlos still can't quite believe it, even feeling the warmth of Cecil's lips against his knuckles. It's too impossible to be anything but a dream. "But how did I survive? What did you do to save me?"

"Not me—it was Kevin, and that Strex man, the one with the golden helmet."

"Director Aldis?" Carlos blinks. "Huxley Aldis helped save my life?"

"Well...not exactly willingly," Cecil says. "But since he was there—since his blood was there. I didn't entirely understand it, but the machines that were in your blood, they were in that man Aldis's blood, too. And since yours were broken, Kevin replaced them. With Aldis's. You can't ask how; he made me promise not to tell anyone how he did it. Though I couldn't watch most of it anyway; all I know is that it was very...fluid. And afterwards you were breathing again, your heart was beating, and you weren't bleeding anymore, though it's taken four days for you to wake up..."

Carlos looks down at his arms, rubs his fingers along the inside of his wrist. The veins are perhaps a slightly paler shade of blue than normal; but they're not glowing, and there is not a prickle of pain.

He lifts his shirt, examines his bare chest. The older scars and burns still pock his flesh, but there is no mark from Kevin's knife, just smooth skin, again knitted whole.

He wonders what will happen, should he be stabbed again, or take some other injury. Something to test later, in a controlled environment.

"Carlos?" Cecil says, soft with concern.

Carlos puts his hand over his heart, feeling the unscarred skin, the pulse beating underneath. That organ doesn't seem to care about the composition of the blood it's pumping, at least. "So Kevin saved me."

"He said we weren't even," Cecil says. "Not after what we, what you, did for Desert Bluffs. But that it was a start."

"What's happened to Desert Bluffs? And Strex, everything there, everyone—"

"I'm not sure about everything," Cecil says. "We left right after the corporate buyout—it seems the attack, and then the employees revolting, left Strex vulnerable. And since the new owners don't actually exist, information has been a little vague..."

"Strex still exists?"

Cecil nods. "For now—the financial analysts are predicting they're going to file for bankruptcy. A lot of the employees have quit. Most of them, it sounds like. And on the radio yesterday, Kevin announced that DBCR is no longer accepting StrexCorp as a sponsor. "

"So Kevin still has his show?" Carlos has no idea how he feels about that.

By Cecil's expression, he's equally uncertain. "He's been broadcasting every day. We can get Desert Bluff's station in Night Vale now, though it's mostly dead air when Kevin's not on. Not so much as the weather—I've been thinking of maybe recommending a few meteorologists to fill in, while they get things in order over there..."

"They're going to need to rebuild so much, to make Desert Bluffs back into...whatever it was originally, before Strex," Carlos says. "I should go back, if there's anything I can do to help..."

Cecil tenses. "Eventually," Carlos clarifies. "Not right now."

"Obviously not right now," Cecil says, relaxing. "Since the secret police wouldn't like us just leaving detention. It'd hurt their feelings, and it's better to stay on their good side when reasonable."

"'Us'?" Carlos repeats. "Cecil, are you in trouble, too? That's ridiculous—I was a Strex employee, but after everything you did for Night Vale—!"

"It's no big deal, Carlos!" Cecil sounds sweetly amused by Carlos's indignation. "Since being here with you is where I wanted to be anyway. Besides, it's not like either of us are _really_ in trouble. Even if you weren't a hero—which you are!—you're a personal friend of the Mayor; all you have to do is ask her for a pardon."

"But I don't remember any mayor," Carlos protests. "How could I ask her for a pardon, when I don't even know her name?"

"As it happens," Cecil says, "there was an election, just a few days ago, the day after Strex fell—it was supposed to be the same day we invaded, but then that was moved forward. And it turns out it's even easier to keep the polls open and running when not simultaneously engaging with a vastly powerful corpocratic empire, who knew? Anyway, Night Vale has a new mayor."

"It doesn't matter; I don't remember anybody in Night Vale, except for you, Cecil," Carlos says.

"Actually, you do," says a new voice. "Now."

Carlos jerks his head up to see Dana appear—not materializing, but entering through the doorway, opening and closing the wooden door behind her. Her hand easily turns the brass knob.

"Dana?" Carlos scrambles off the bed. "You're...here?" He reaches for her, tentatively.

Dana is not so tentative. "Carlos, you're all right!" she cries, and throws her arms around him. They don't pass through him, even a little; she's completely solid, a warm, definite existence, laughing out loud as she squeezes him hard enough to crack a rib.

When she releases him Carlos takes her by the shoulders, looks her up and down. "Are you using the orange pip? Or...?" Dana is different, he realizes. Her increased presence is more than a purely physical property—she looks little older, a little more mature. Though that might be an effect of the stylish pants suit she's wearing, rather than the red intern's t-shirt he's only ever seen her in before.

But her smile is as joyfully alive as always, as she shakes her head. "Nope, no pip now—I'm here, in Night Vale. I came back—me, and Dave, too; he's with your other scientists now."

"That's—that's wonderful!" Carlos says. "What about Nisa?"

"Not yet." Dana's smile dims, but doesn't vanish. "Nisa couldn't go through the doors, since she doesn't belong in Night Vale. But she has an orange pip—or rather, people she knows in Desert Bluffs have it; Dave got the last pip from Tamika and sent it over. So Nisa has seen her family, she wanted me to tell you; they're all right, and they've seen her. And she's figuring out her way back to them right now. There's another scientist helping her, Fritz—she says you know him?"

Carlos nods, too overwhelmed by these revelations to speak.

"So she'll be back soon. And Nisa says that it's good she's in the otherworld anyway. There's a lot of interesting science to do there, she says. Also the other man who went there with Dave, that Dr. Talbot? He ran off somewhere. So Nisa and my friends—you might've seen them, about that tall at the knees, with the masks?—are looking for him, before he can cause any trouble."

Carlos wonders how much trouble one ex-interrogator could do in a vast otherworldly desert.

On the other hand, Dana had mentioned a dangerous light there. The same light that had seared his veins, the last time Dana had come to the orange pip. Though they remain invisibly dim now, when he glances down at his arms.

Dana nudges his shoulder in a reassuring way. "But there will be plenty of time to talk about that later—with everyone! We've been getting so many questions about what happened to you, and Strex and Desert Bluffs. Cecil's going to have to do a special show about it."

"You can guest-star!" Cecil tells Carlos.

"It'll make everyone feel better, finally hearing you on the radio again, Cecil," Dana says. "But first things first. Since you're finally awake, Carlos, I'll have a talk with the sheriff, file the paperwork to get both of you out of here."

She grins at Cecil, who beams back. "So we have a couple of hours?"

"At least three, unless I call in Trish to help. I'm still learning my mayoral powers."

"Three hours will be just fine," Cecil says, slipping his arm around Carlos's waist. "I'm sure Carlos and I can find a way to pass the time...though maybe you could ask the police to turn off the camera?"

"Leave it to me; I've got the authority for that much," Dana says. Then she clasps Carlos's hand both of hers. "I'm so glad to help—let me know if there's anything else I can do for you."

"For _me_ —?" Carlos finally finds his voice, hoarse and inarticulate but this needs to be said. "I'm the one—Dana, if you hadn't ever appeared in my lab, I wouldn't be here now; I wouldn't even know there was anywhere I wanted to be," and he glances at Cecil at his side. "I owe you so much—if there's ever anything I can do, for you or for Night Vale—"

"Night Vale might need your science sometimes," Dana says, "and as mayor I'll ask for it, when we do. But me—you don't owe me anything, Carlos. What are friends for, if not to be there for each other?"

She grips his hand firmly, lets go. "Now, I bet you and Cecil have some catching up to do," and she winks at Cecil. "Looking forward to hearing all about it."

"Not _all_ ," Cecil says, though his grin is anything but self-conscious. "It's a _community_ radio show, after all! Besides, you know how Carlos feels about private things between us..."

Dana rolls her eyes. "I didn't mean on the show, Cecil! But I'm still on the intern mailing list, you know. Have fun, you guys, I'll see you later!"

The door has closed behind her before Carlos can get out, "...Mailing list?"

"It was set up a while ago," Cecil says. "Before my time, and I don't have moderator permissions, so there's only two ways for interns to get off it, either being promoted to paid employee, or more commonly by—"

Carlos shakes his head; that wasn't what he'd been intending to say. "So, how do I feel about it?"

Cecil blinks in confusion. "About the intern mailing list?"

"About private things between us..."

On cue, the camera in the corner stops rotating, its motor's faint hum quieting as the red recording light blinks out. Cecil smiles at Carlos, draws closer to murmur into his ear, "Why don't you show me how you feel about them?"

Carlos had never thought of his ears as especially sensitive, but that basso thrum and the graze of those lips are purely erotic, as arousing as having Cecil under him. Desire pulses along his nerves like an electric charge, temporarily whiting out reason. Cecil's hands are undoing the buttons of Carlos's shirt, one by one, and each languid scrape of his nails across Carlos's skin is another bolt of unexpected lust.

"Cecil," Carlos groans, "Cecil, that's—you..." A last tenuous thread of conscience asserts itself. He takes Cecil's wrists, gently lifts those tempting hands from his skin as he steps back, putting an arm's length between them. "Cecil, please, wait."

Cecil freezes in place, tilts his head at Carlos with a worried frown. "Is something wrong?"

Nothing. Everything. It takes such an effort to not just fall back into Cecil's embrace that Carlos is almost trembling from it. "Not exactly," he says, "except...Cecil, are you sure? Are you sure that you want this? With me?"

"With you?" Cecil's jaw literally drops with astonishment. "Who else would I want, if not you?"

"Carlos," Carlos says. " _Your_ Carlos. The Carlos you've mourned for the last four months."

"But you're—"

"No, I'm not." Carlos realizes his knuckles are whitening, lets go of Cecil's wrists before he hurts him. He curls them into fists, nails biting into his own palms, as he, says evenly, "I don't remember meeting you; I don't remember ever coming to Night Vale. All I remember is being a scientist who worked for Strex—who helped them steal your bloodstones—"

"—That's all right, we've gotten most of them back," Cecil says. "Besides, after an experience as transformative as StrexCorp's buyout, most people are consecrating new stones anyway."

"But Strex might not have had such an impact on Night Vale, if not for me," Carlos says. "If I had never gone there, if they had never learned of the possibility of the memory removal—when I left Night Vale, you still had your show, Cecil; maybe they wouldn't have moved so quickly, if they hadn't wanted that technique—"

"Or maybe they would have," Cecil says. "Who can ever say what might have happened? Except for time travelers, but that's currently illegal. So all we know is what did happen."

"Except that I don't even know that much," Carlos says. "I don't remember what happened to me in Night Vale—I don't remember you, Cecil."

Cecil steps closer, moves slowly but with such certainty that Carlos doesn't flinch back, as Cecil lays his hand against his cheek, turns his face to look him in the eyes. "But you know my name."

"Only because I heard it on the radio."

"That was always the case," Cecil says, chuckling, "because I utterly forgot to mention it to you when we met, at the town meeting, or later at the station...it was the first time I'd ever seen you smile; who could blame me for being a bit discombobulated?"

 _Climbing onto a low wooden stage to address a crowd more interested in their plates of baked goods than his presentation..._ Carlos shakes his head. "Cecil, I was in Night Vale before, I knew you, for more than a year—"

"Two years and three days," Cecil says. "You slept through your second anniversary."

"Two years—and I only remember four months of it, and half of that's foggy! I only heard you on the radio for the first time—the first time I can remember—a month ago."

"But the memories are coming back, aren't they?"

Carlos looks at Cecil's hopeful smile, and for a moment thinks that he would rather feel the Smiling God's light again, than tell the truth. But a lie would only hurt Cecil more, in the end. Carlos shakes his head. "No, they're not. They won't. I'll have to study the tape to be sure," what's left of it; Kevin's broadcast used the last working recording, and Carlos would as soon never recreate it. "But from everything I know, Strex's research and the evidence I observed, the memories are permanently lost. Not blocked, but destroyed. There are some residual emotional states—instinctual reactions, hindbrain responses that weren't affected by the higher cortex interactions. But all conscious knowledge of my experiences here, every memory I had of Night Vale, is gone for good."

"You remembered our first date, the dinner at Gino's, the experiments on the trees!"

"No," Carlos admits. "I didn't. I just remember dreaming about it."

"But if you remember in your dreams, maybe you can when you're awake—"

"Except they're not my dreams," Carlos says. "Every dream I've had of Night Vale, you've been there, with me." He glances at the ceiling, verifies the camera is still off. "Invasive dream-walking, isn't that what you called it? Even before Strex captured you and put you in a trance deep enough for us to communicate directly, you were trying to reach me, see me again—for how long? Months, I'm guessing. Maybe since I went to Desert Bluffs."

Cecil doesn't need to answer aloud; his expression is confirmation enough.

"I didn't realize that the dreams were anything more than my own imagination, not until those last few," Carlos says. "But it was always you, your memories of the time we spent together. Our home, our first date—your memories, and I fit myself into them, subconsciously imagined what I felt, doing what you remember me doing, saying what you remember me saying. But I don't know what I actually felt or thought. My own memories are gone, Cecil. I'm not going to get them back. I'll never be the man I was before."

"Of course you won't," Cecil says. "What would be the point of living, if you might spontaneously revert to who you were yesterday, or a year ago, or a lifetime? Even if you could recall every instant of your existence in eidetic detail, you yet wouldn't be the same man who you remember being. Or conversely, when you lost your memories, did you transform back into the exact same person you were before you came to Night Vale?"

"No...no, I didn't." Even without Strex's manipulation and brainwashing, Carlos wouldn't have been the same man. He touches his chest, feeling the roughness of the scars. Night Vale had left its mark, even unremembered.

Cecil looks as well, his gaze tracing the unseen pattern of scars surely through Carlos's shirt, as if he's memorized each pock and ridge. "Do you know how you got those wounds?"

"Somewhat," Carlos says. "It was at a bowling alley? On one of the lanes...or under it. You remember it, don't you."

"Vividly." Cecil shudders. "I would have spared you that memory, had I known."

"But I'd want to know it anyway," Carlos says. "I want to know everything that happened to me in Night Vale, everything I did, with you, with everyone. The good things and the terrible things—all of it."

"You do?"

Carlos nods. This much, at least, he knows. "I'll never be who I was before, and the life that man had is gone, too. But I'd like to get back as much of it as I can." He was a scientist, but he'd given up his knowledge, everything he'd worked so hard to learn, to protect Night Vale. To protect Cecil. Even if he's not the man who made that choice, he understands it. "I don't need to remember, to know that I was happy here."

Cecil smiles at him, so wide it hurts. "Oh, Carlos, so was I."

Cecil's smile doesn't look anything like Kevin's. Carlos wonders how even his primitive hindbrain could have mistaken one for the other. "But do you understand, Cecil? I'm not the Carlos you fell in love with, the Carlos who fell in love with you. Physically, I'm the same man, plus or minus a yet-to-be-determined percentage of nanomachinery. But the man you loved...I don't know how much of him is left, if any. I'll never know. And I can't expect you to feel the same way about me, when I'm not the same."

Cecil steps near—too near; not touching, but barely centimeters between them, and his closeness hums like static electricity against Carlos's skin. "And how do you feel about me, Carlos?" Cecil asks quietly. He leans in, lips almost brushing Carlos's ear, the warm breath of his whisper curling around his lobe. "When you don't remember falling in love?"

"As—as I said, residual emotions—some physical responses remain," Carlos says thickly, fighting to keep his hands at his sides. "When I look at you, when I touch you, when I hear your voice—oh God, Cecil, your voice, from the first time I heard it—"

"But I'm not the same, either," Cecil says. "How could I be, after everything that happened? Strex coming to Night Vale, going on the run, those pirate broadcasts—and then I was captured myself, and even if I wasn't conscious for most of it, I can't help but wonder what they did to me when they had me. And you, Carlos—you were dead to me, and so many people in my life have died, but to lose you...there were days, these last four months, that I wished I didn't remember you, that I wished I could forget ever meeting you.

"But then I would have to forget everything else, too, and it wouldn't be worth it; nothing would be worth forgetting your smile, forgetting how it felt the first time you called me. Forgetting seeing you in that parking lot, waiting for me." Cecil closes his eyes, not seductive but wearily. "I know what you've lost, Carlos. What you gave up, for Night Vale. And after all of that, you were willing to sacrifice yourself again..."

Carlos opens his mouth, but Cecil raises his hand. His voice falls like twilight, the shadow that allows stars to shine. "Two years ago, a scientist came to Night Vale, and I fell in love instantly with his beautiful smile, his beautiful hair," and Cecil's hand ghosts over Carlos's cropped curls. "And miraculously, he came to love me back. But too soon I lost him, forever, and I grieved. I grieved for him, and for Night Vale, and for myself, too, for my own heart, for those feelings I thought I would never have again.

"Then five days ago, in Desert Bluffs, you lifted my blindfold and I saw you, standing over me—I saw you, unsmiling, with your hair hacked short; I saw you, afraid, and desperate, and brilliant, and indomitable, even after all Strex had done—I saw you, and I loved you more than I've ever loved anyone."

"I—" Carlos chokes out. There's a weight on his chest that he can hardly force words around—if he had any words left, when Cecil has taken all of them. "I—me, too, Cecil."

It's a pitifully prosaic reply, even for a scientist; but Cecil doesn't seem to care. He exhales as if he's been holding his breath for an hour. The sheer relief on his face, in his slumped shoulders, is such that Carlos can't help himself. He leans in, kisses Cecil, not gently but hard and deep.

Cecil kisses back as if picking up right where they left off. One hand rakes through Carlos's hair as the other finishes the last buttons on Carlos's shirt and drops to his zipper. Carlos's knees go weak. When he stumbles, Cecil's arms circle him, legs aligning to guide them in an entwined dance two steps back, to the bed.

"Wait—wait," Carlos gasps, as the too-luxurious mattress gives under him.

Cecil instantly pulls back, though his voice is breathlessly hoarse as he asks, "What is it, Carlos?"

"It's just, doing this now..."

"We don't have to," Cecil says. In one easy motion he's unwrapped himself from Carlos and sat beside him on the bed. He's close enough for Carlos to feel the furry texture of his trousers, but his hands are clasped in his lap, respectfully nonchalant. "Whatever you want, or don't want to do, it's fine with me. We can take it as slow as you'd like—"

"Not slow!" Carlos looks down at his own hands; it's the only way he can keep them in place on his knees. "I'd like it not slow at all—but, Cecil, there's a lot I don't know anymore. This...we never got very far, not in the dreams I can recall. So, I'm assuming we've had sex before," and he can feel Cecil's emphatic nod without looking at him, "but...I'm so sorry, but I don't remember any of it."

Cecil is quiet, his silence somehow intently unaccusing, listening with careful acceptance.

"And, um, you were probably the first man I made love to," Carlos says, still looking down at his lap. "I never got that far with any other guys before I came to Night Vale. Did you know that, did I ever tell you?"

Cecil nods again, reassuringly. Carlos goes on, "At Strex, there were a couple of... I made out with an executive, though he doesn't remember that anymore. And I almost dated Kevin, before I knew about you, about you and me. But then I found out, and, well, nothing happened in the end, with Kevin or with Johnny Peterson."

Cecil's shoulders are stiff beside him, but he hasn't pulled away. Carlos takes a deep breath, says, "So—we're going to have to start over from scratch. I'll need practice, instruction—I want this, Cecil, very badly; but I also want it to be good, for you, and I don't know what I'm doing. Even if you know everything about me, I'm going to have to relearn it all, what you like, and what I like, too, and I know that's—"

"Carlos," Cecil finally interrupts. He takes Carlos's face in his hands, turns it toward him. "My amazing Carlos, I don't know everything, not by a very long shot! We'd been going out for less than a year, when you went to Desert Bluffs—the anniversary of our first date is next month. I'm more experienced than you are, true; but you have an infinity of secrets unique to yourself, as everyone does, in bed and out of it, and I had barely started to discover them. As for yourself—one thing I do know is that scientists are very fast learners. And _delightfully_ eager to experiment..."

Carlos feels his cheeks heat, from more than the warmth of Cecil's hands. "Well, that's...openness to new knowledge and experiential data is crucial to any scientific practice—but, Cecil, you've been waiting for months. I don't want to disappoint you, not now." It's one thing for Cecil to be so understanding on a rational, intellectual level. Another altogether to forgive in the heat of the moment, to throw yourself into passion only to have your partner fail to meet you.

Cecil doesn't look discouraged, however, when Carlos dares meet his eyes. His drawn brow is more thoughtful than frustrated. "There are ways you could disappoint me, Carlos, but not in this, that I can imagine," he says. "But I would disappoint myself deeply, if I made you feel at all unprepared, or laid any expectation on you that you weren't ready for. Maybe there's another option, however."

He gets up, goes to the chair by the bed. There's a messenger bag hanging over the straight wooden back. Cecil rummages through the bag, pulls out a ragged spiral-bound notebook of the type Carlos has favored since college.

"If you're worried that I remember too much, or that you don't remember enough," Cecil says, "maybe it's better to start with something we've both forgotten," and he hands Carlos the notebook.

"Forgot what...?" Carlos opens the notebook, pages through it. It's filled with lists, checkmarks and numbers with obscure notations, in two distinct writing styles. Though the code is unfamiliar, he recognizes one of the hands as his own.

"Didn't you say the written word was illegal?" he asks. "Is it safe, sneaking this into here?"

"Pens are illegal," Cecil says. "Writing is fine. And who can prove that was written with a pen? Maybe I spilled some ink that just happened to form into those letters, entirely coincidentally."

Carlos looks back down at the notebook. So the spidery, elegant script interspersed between his crabbed block letters is the one he has to relearn. "What's this a record of?" he asks, running his finger down the columns of numbers.

"When I told you about your work making the cassette," Cecil says, "I mentioned that sometimes you'd forget what science you'd done? And I forgot, too, when I helped you. You took lots of notes, but when you were done, you destroyed them, so Strex couldn't find them. Except for this notebook—you were keeping track of us. What we did together, so we'd know, even if we didn't remember."

"Keeping track?" Carlos blinks down at the notebook. "Then, this symbol—"

"When I ran my foot up your calf," Cecil says, and demonstrates with surprising flexibility, given their positions side by side on the bed. "And that's when you fluttered your eyelashes—yes, like that!" as Carlos blinks again. "And this one—"

"The number of times you said my name," Carlos says. "And the tones, too?" It's not so difficult a cipher to follow, or maybe that's because it's exactly as he would've conceived it. Though he wonders that he bothered inventing the notation, rather than writing it out for Cecil—or did he have it already? He always has had a predilection for trying to mathematically calculate the best things in his life...

Cecil is nodding eagerly. "And this is you saying my name! And nicknames here. This one is you kissing my neck. Oh! this one is—"

"Yes, I see," Carlos says, his cheeks warming again. "I, um, take it we were working alone, just the two of us, for a number of these experiments?"

"Yes, and at home, after Strex bought out your lab," Cecil says. "Some nights, if you finished early, we'd test these notes out, make sure they were accurate. That's important for experiments, right, to verify the results? But we weren't even halfway through the notebook when you went to Desert Bluffs, and I thought I'd never... Anyway, would you like to verify some now? This one, maybe..."

Carlos looks down at the notebook, at the line Cecil is indicating, recorded in his hand, with a secondary note and a smiley face in Cecil's. He can't remember, but he can so easily imagine it, the two of them side by side and smiling in the afterglow, fingers brushing as they hand off the illegal pen. Knowing they won't remember, but ensuring that they don't forget, either; that the joy they share is documented, preserved, as carefully as any scientific work.

Carlos reads the figures, and his heart clenches with the knowledge that the man who held that pen won't hold it again. Won't touch Cecil again, or hear Cecil say his name. Experiments can be recreated, but no later experiments can change the original results. 

And if those first results are lost, if the data is destroyed, it can't be rewritten. All a scientist can do is run the experiment again; if the hypothesis is sound, then the results will be repeated.

Must be repeated, for a hypothesis to mean anything.

Carlos closes the notebook, sets it aside. "Perhaps later, at home—when confirming a scientific experiment, it's important to accurately reproduce the original environment. Right now..." He nuzzles Cecil's neck, and Cecil lets go a quivering sigh, lets his head fall back. Carlos trails kisses down his throat, placing each carefully, lips here, a nibble there, listening to Cecil's breath catch. It's erratic, unpredictable, or else the pattern is too complex to easily solve for. Even with the notebook, this is going to take extensive research.

Carlos can't wait to start. "Right now, we could make some new memories? For both of us?"

Cecil lifts his head to smile at Carlos, wide and wonderfully imperfect. "Oh, my Carlos," he says, "I could never have enough of those," and he pulls Carlos to him.

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> For the final time, thank you so much, everyone who's read, commented, kudos'ed, and bookmarked; and thus given this story life.
> 
> Last year, I started a one-shot sequel to my fic "Unvoiced", with Cecil losing Carlos to the revolution against Strex. Before I could finish it, I became distracted wondering what had actually happened to Carlos, and turned to writing his side of the story in StrexCorp's horrible, horribly intriguing dystopia. I had the basic premise (I always knew Carlos erased his own memories in trying to save Night Vale, and that eventually he would use the same power to save Desert Bluffs) but few details of the plot; and when I started posting, I honestly didn't know if anyone else would be interested in what I thought was going to be maybe 30,000 words of incorporated angst.
> 
> Nearly 200K words (with the cuts and rewrites) and thirty-plus episodes later, I finally wrote the end, and I would never have gotten here without all of you. I had a blast posting this, getting all the reactions and speculations - I hope it was half as fun for you to read!
> 
> This is likely my last WTNV fic (I'm hoping to focus more on original stories.) I've had a fantastic time writing for this fandom, and this pairing; I'm so glad that I found this show in all its bizarre and moving and hilarious glory, and that I could give back a bit of the joy it's given me. Whenever you're reading this, I'd love to know what you think.
> 
> And good night, Night Vale, good night.


End file.
